#it says ���THREATENED to blow my brains out”

[unordinary-diary]

Blyke and John: Parallel Characters

I’ve written multiple entries about this,

[x] [x] [x]

But I’m back to make a comprehensive analysis about the glaring similarities between these two. I’ll try not to repeat myself here.

‼️SPOILER WARNING for the whole series‼️ but this mostly focuses on the story before John’s suspension.

Firstly, this scene:

ch. 121

This conversation takes place near the beginning of the Joker arc. It’s after John targets Zeke, after he targets Juni, and the day before he goes after Seraphina’s kidnappers. The timing is important.

“If someone hit your best friend, would you let it slide?”

That question is supposed to remind us what John does to people who hurt Seraphina: hunting them down and sending them to the hospital. Blyke shooting a destructive beam really close to John was an example of a trait they share: they both blow up violently when people mistreat their friends.

John’s downward spiral carries strong themes of hypocrisy. He’s angry at the world, he’s angry at himself, and as a coping mechanism, he chooses to believe that everyone else is as bad as he is. That means that most of the traits he hates others for are the same things he hates about himself. In this scene, Blyke is unintentionally calling out this hypocrisy: “What I did is no different from what you do”.

But Blyke’s just trying to connect with John here, he has no idea what John’s been doing. And John, of course, doesn’t give a shit about what Blyke has to say. This line was here for the audience to notice.

They’re both so similar, but their similarity immediately causes tension between them because, well, John was on the wrong end of Blyke’s protectiveness.

I really love the way this was written— there are so many flashbacks to this scene, but they remember it differently. John remembers the part that hurt him— he’d describe it as “the time that jackass shot a beam at me”. Blyke remembers the part that hurt him, or rather, hurt Remi: “the time that jackass hit Remi for no reason”.

Blyke and John are both hotheaded characters with strong ideals. They’re similar enough that Seraphina points it out:

(ch. 80)

As Blyke grows as a character, he becomes more like John: sticking up for low tiers and speaking out against the injustice in the world. But while Blyke is doing that more, John is going in the opposite direction, until they are fully opposed to each other.

Speaking of Blyke’s character arc, it took me a few rereads to actually understand what part of him changed. His kindness, selflessness, bravery— all of those things were there from the start. Blyke’s character arc was about becoming more aware of his surroundings, and how his carelessness can harm others. Blyke was never malicious, but after X-Rei and integrating more with the school, he becomes aware of people suffering around him and how he unintentionally contributes to it. He becomes less reckless, privy to the flaws in the system he grew up not questioning, and uses his power more responsibly. He even comes up with a more controlled way to wield his ability. The part of Blyke that changes is his maturity.

Part of John’s character arc is also about being careful. It’s not as close of a parallel as other things are, but one of the things that John works on during his redemption arc is holding back. Both of them learn self-control throughout the series, and for John, that means acting early before his emotions spiral out of hand.

Adding onto my first point about the two of them wanting to protect their friends— the fact that they can’t do that makes them both angry and desperate. For most of the story, the “block” that prevents John from protecting Seraphina is in his head. It’s his own trauma that holds him back. The block that prevents Blyke from protecting his friends is, guess what? Also John’s trauma! Parallels abound.

Another thing I noticed in Episode 80 is this:

Notice that when Seraphina says “I’d take that over strength any day,” John is looking at the camera. He’s avoiding Sera’s gaze. Seraphina is saying she prefers honesty over strength. John is very strong, and very dishonest, but Seraphina thinks the opposite because John is so dishonest. John appears to be reflecting on this disconnect.

In relation to this analysis, Seraphina is actually pointing out a major difference between Blyke and John. Beyond that, she’s praising Blyke’s traits, (less strong but very open) above John’s traits, (strong as fuck but a liar with his pants on fire). Furthermore, John really cares what Seraphina thinks of him. Knowing that she would think less of him is the main reason why he spent so much time and effort preventing her from catching his lies.

This leads into my main point here: Blyke is the “goody-two-shoes” version of John. Or, more accurately, the person that John wants to be. Blyke has a clean track record and doesn’t really get into trouble. He is respected and left alone by the school without being hated and feared, he de-escalates conflicts without taking things too far, he doesn’t lose control, he’s someone Seraphina thinks highly of, hell, even his grades are better! Blyke represents everything that John wants to be, and the person that he could have been if he’d gone down a different path.

But, crucially, John is also what Blyke wants to be. Well, not wholly, but his ability? His strength? It’s one of the things John hates about himself, but Blyke wants that strength so desperately that he risks his life for it over and over again.

They’re both desperate to be like each other, even when they hate each other the most. Neither of them have any idea how alike they already are.

I don’t know what Season 3 holds in store for us, but I do hope that John realizes that Blyke embodies who he wants to be, because mutual jealousy would be a very interesting dynamic to explore in my opinion. I also hope that it ends up being something they can bond over, by helping each other accomplish their personal goals. (Blyke being another helper in John’s character arc, and John helping Blyke train.)

A side note: John beat up Blyke four separate times. That’s more than any other character, which is interesting because John’s main rival is supposed to be Arlo. For reference, John has beaten Arlo twice, three times if you count the time when Seraphina intervened, and he only beat him unconscious once. But John beat Blyke to the point of passing out all four times, the worst of which being a shot clean through his chest. (shoulder? Unclear. S1 finale).

It’s odd, isn’t it? Out of everyone, Blyke is the one who John physically hurt the most. John’s only grudge against him is an old memory from episode 33, of an event that didn’t actually harm him. John’s grudge against Arlo is much more serious and again— that’s his main rival. So why is it that he’s so much more violent towards Blyke?

The problem here is that I’ve been thinking about these fights as “John picking on Blyke”. And that’s… kind of true? But while Blyke didn’t start any of these fights, they were all consensual in a way. He didn’t seek to fight John, nor was he ever happy about fighting John, but he was always a willing participant.

(138, 153, 206, & 211)

In three out of these four fights, John didn’t even expect to be fighting Blyke going into it. This is significant because while Arlo is John’s main rival, John absolutely fills that role for Blyke. Blyke’s own agency is what leads to most of these events. The reason, narratively speaking, why they fight so much is not for John’s character, but for Blyke.

For John, his reason for fighting Blyke so much is not narrative but moreso symbolic. John is angry at everyone and everything, but ultimately the person he hates the most is himself. It’s only fitting that the character most like him would bear the brunt of his wrath.

As John is having his positive character arc (suspension and post-suspension), he is becoming more like Blyke, and the two of them reach a point where they’re even more similar than they were at the start of the series.

In the Rowden amusement park, John does start to realize how similar they are:

(249)

Additionally, I want to draw your attention to the parallels between this scene:

Blyke and John’s argument in chapter 249

(which the image limit won’t let me add, scroll until you see red hair.)

And this scene:

Argument in ch. 121 (it’s at the beginning)

Two sides of the same coin.

Furthermore, in the S2 finale, Blyke is shown being taken to Keon. There is an implication that by Season 3, Blyke and John will share Keon-related trauma as well. Despite my pessimistic predictions, I do hope that this is a similarity that can bring them together rather than tear them apart.

[elixirfromthestars]

Boulevard Confessions

Pairing: 1940s!Bucky Barnes x Nurse!Reader 

Summary: Being a third wheel to Peggy and Steve wasn't your ideal Thursday night fun. However, when they tell you Bucky is tagging along you eagerly decide to join them. That is until a third party makes its presence known.

Word Count: 3.6k

Warning(s): drinking / fluff / jealousy / divergent from canon timeline / suggestive language / tipsy symptoms / mentions of war + the hardships that came with it

a/n:  Here’s a little piece that’s been sitting unfinished in my drafts for ages. For context, this timeline is one where Steve and Bucky both made it back from the war safe and sound and are enjoying their lives now that the war is over. Thank you for reading! ₊˚⊹♡ As a little psa my writing challenge is still ongoing!! Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!! ♡

for ambiance 🎶

“ I am about to spew my dinner all over this table,” you grimace, downing the rest of your martini. The bitterness of the spirits was lost on you as your consumption grew in time with your sour mood.

Peggy eyed you from across the table, holding back her amusement, “ If you keep stuffing your face with martinis you will.” You reach out to grab another unclaimed drink, but before you could, Peggy slid the rest of them away from you. You crossed your arms, blowing out a resigned sigh. Even in your inhibited state, you knew better than to argue with an SSR agent. 

Peggy shook her head at you, “ As your best friend I have an obligation to put a stop to this. Don’t you have a shift tomorrow at the clinic?” Your eyes went wide at the reminder. 

You slump in the booth, dreading the bad hangover awaiting you in the morning. “ I do, but thankfully it's in the afternoon. I won’t feel it by then. . .” You trailed off, failing to convince Peggy, or yourself, you wouldn’t be miserable at work tomorrow. Peggy turned to look at the dance floor before returning her attention to you, “ You know, maybe you should dance the dizzy away. It might help you sober up.” Your lips purse at her suggestion, noticing a certain blonde-haired blue-eyed super soldier returning from the bathroom.

 “ It's easy for you to say. You have a dance partner,” you motioned over to Steve. 

“ You would too if you would only go up and ask him,” she pointed out. 

You glanced at the dancing couples, “ No way. With the way that leech is clinging on to him—I’d never get one word in.”

She shrugged, “ You’ll never know until you try.” These were her parting words before Steve arrived at the table and escorted her onto the dance floor. You watched them, your head bopping along tiredly to the swing music. 

Maybe you should have stayed home. 

You almost didn’t come to the outing—being the third wheel to Peggy and Steve wasn’t exactly your ideal Thursday night fun. However, Peggy had mentioned Bucky would come along, and seeing as you hadn’t seen him in a few weeks due to conflicting schedules, you thought this would be the perfect opportunity to catch up. 

That was until the leech—a woman named Darla—decided to hog Bucky all night. Darla had been trying to get with Bucky for over a month now. You found this out tonight when Steve made a comment about it. Bucky hadn’t paid it much importance, so you thought it must have not been anything serious. However, right about the time you and Bucky were starting to catch up, Darla came over and dragged him away. 

Since then you’ve been inhaling martinis like your lungs preferred them over air. 

You couldn’t help the way your eyes drifted over to Bucky’s figure. Handsome as ever in his navy suit—your favorite color on him—and hair neatly combed. Watching as Darla threw herself at him with the courage that you lacked. Pulling him every which way on the dance floor, holding his hands to her hips in a tight grip. 

Your stomach contents were threatening to come up again. 

When did things get so complicated? You scratched at your brain for an answer. Spending time with Bucky had been so easy back at the military base where you met. You were stationed there in the medical unit caring for wounded and ill soldiers. During that time, you became great friends with Peggy and everyone on the Howling Commandos team. Bucky would frequently visit the medical unit even when he wasn’t sick or wounded. Sometimes you swore he would fake injuries or aches just to come and see you. Anytime he came in with something new he would refuse to see any other nurse but you.

It made you feel special. While other women were smitten with his charms and stumbled over seizing his attention—you had it without effort. You had so much more than just his attention without even trying. On hopeless nights he shared his fears, on days where the war seemed endless you eased his worries, and when he felt like the world was crashing down on him his heart spilled all vulnerabilities to you. 

You found refuge from the horrors of war in each other—a balm to each other’s wounds that went beyond the physical. In no time, something deeper for him bloomed within your heart. 

Ever since the war was over, however, things have been different. It’s been a couple of years and Steve and Bucky work alongside Peggy for the Strategic Scientific Reserve. Going on missions has become their norm, so seeing your friends is a rarity nowadays. 

You on the other hand were given a job at a children’s clinic in Brooklyn. You were grateful for this small piece of normality coming back to you. Treating smaller wounds on smaller bodies instead of lethal wounds during a relentless battle. Your senses are permanently burned with sights, sounds, and smells horrific enough to induce nightmares—and they do—managing to steal precious hours of sleep from you almost every night.

It was something you and Bucky especially bonded over.

“ May I have the honor of a dance, gorgeous?” A voice interrupted your thoughts. You looked up to meet a pair of unrecognizable hazel eyes. A handsome stranger stood in front of you, his hand outstretched for you to take. If you had but only one percentage less of alcohol in your system you would have declined his offer. This of course wasn’t the case, and not wanting to reminisce on more melancholy thoughts, you decided to listen to Peggy’s advice and dance the dizzy away.

Even if it wasn’t with the man you wanted to dance with.

“ You may,” you smiled at him, taking hold of his hand. Swiftly you were swept into the sea of couples on the dance floor. The handsome stranger—who you soon learn was named Thomas—was an impeccable dancer. With one hand holding yours, and the other holding you gently at your lower back, he spun you around the dance floor in rhythmic kicks and slides. Thomas’ energy was infectious and you couldn’t help but match his enthusiasm. 

After two dances your footwork and Thomas’ were practically synchronized. Thomas twirled you, causing a giggle to escape your lips. It seemed the alcohol was stubborn about staying in your system as the twirl caused the dizziness to come back—for a split second—making you trip over your own foot. Thomas caught you and steadied you, both of you laughing at your clumsiness. The carefreeness of it all lulled the ache in your heart.

Behind Thomas, you caught a glimpse of Peggy who was dancing as joyfully with Steve. Her eyes met yours and she sent you an encouraging smile. Soon after, her eyes drifted to something behind you, turning her smile into a smirk. You went back to dancing with Thomas, but manoeuvered around to get a look at what caused Peggy to smirk. Your heart did a little jump when you discovered she had been looking at Bucky and Darla, dancing a few feet from where you were. 

Correction. She had been staring at a Bucky you barely recognized. His jaw clenched and body rigid as he glared daggers at the back of Thomas’ head. Darla beside him looked snubbed, tugging on Bucky’s arm to get his attention. His tense demeanor didn’t move an inch no matter how much she protested. The pair were no longer dancing, merely standing in the sea of all the couples. This piqued your curiosity. 

Why had he stopped dancing? And to glare at Thomas of all things?

You didn’t have much time to think about it as Darla, clearly fed up by Bucky’s lack of attention, grabbed him by his arm and pulled him away from the dance floor. You swayed to and fro with Thomas, controlling the direction you were swinging in to try and not lose Bucky from your line of sight. 

Where was Darla taking him?

Your heart stopped when you realized where they were going. Darla was making a beeline for the back of the bar where the honey hallway was. The spot where all the couples went to have a little more privacy and fool around without having to leave the bar. If he was going there with Darla, then maybe things were more serious between them than you previously believed.

Your heart dropped to your stomach when reality sank in. 

You excused yourself from Thomas, scurrying away in need of some fresh air. He offered to follow along, but you declined wanting to be alone. You threw the entrance door open into the Brooklyn night as a sickly feeling spread throughout your body. 

You stepped into the street, the swing music fading into the background as the door closed behind you. You took in a deep breath, once again regretting the amount of alcohol you had consumed.

If you weren’t drunk seeing Bucky with someone else wouldn’t have hurt so much. It wouldn’t have knocked the air out of your lungs like it's doing now.

You know that’s a lie. That’s a damn lie you’re telling yourself to get you through the night. To give you the strength to focus on your surroundings and trudge home. 

You’d eventually do that. First, however, your body seemed to want to cling to a street lamp to bring the world back to you. The cold metal underneath your palms grounding you for a moment. The breeze blowing past you threading through your hair as if to comfort you.

“ Doll, everything alright?” Your heart stuttered when you heard his voice, the thud of the bar door closing following it. You shut your eyes and bit the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from saying or doing anything the liquid courage in your system was trying to wrestle out of you. 

You knew you needed to make a quick getaway. 

“ I’m fine. Just heading home,” you were straight to the point before turning to walk away. Not looking at him as you put one foot in front of the other—and then stumbled. 

Bucky caught you, his arms offering a strong support,“ Woah, Y/n, how much did you drink?” There was a slight annoyance in his tone. As if the mere thought of you having fun was preposterous. 

Or at least that’s how your tipsy state interpreted it.

“ Doesn’t matter. I can have a drink or two if I want to. I get to have fun too,” you retort, trying to push his arms away from your body. Your arms are no match for his, as he doesn’t budge an inch—on the contrary, his hold gets more firm. The world started to spin more, but at this point, whether it was because of the martinis or his proximity—you wouldn’t know. 

Bucky huffed and rolled his eyes,“ This isn’t having fun. This is going overboard,” he counters. His constant need to hold you steady and scold you for drinking irked the part of you that was already upset with him—fueling it more. Especially when you had the image of him heading to the honey hallway with Darla ingrained in your brain. And his arms, the ones around you now, swinging her around on the dancefloor. 

There was something dark bubbling an envious brew within you. 

“ Why do you give a damn?” you snap out harshly. He stills at your tone and it's enough to shake his hold off of you. You force yourself to look at him. Intending to shoot him an annoyed glare. Something to convey what your heart felt when your words failed to—but when your eyes met his you froze. 

They were dark—virtually stormy—and yet, there was a hint of pain in them. Almost as if you had kicked him, but he was toughing it out.

“ What was that about?” He finally spoke after what seemed like too long. 

“ What was what about?” You feigned innocence. 

His eyes got darker, a disapproving half smile on his face,“ Don’t play coy. I come out here to check on you. You’re stumbling like a drunk fool. I try to help and you snap at me?” 

“ I didn’t ask you to,” you’re quick with your dismissal.

“ You…unbelievable…” Bucky lets out a scoff, not knowing how to respond. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into you. In his mind, you’re simply too drunk to regulate yourself. He doesn’t know the vile jealousy that bubbles in the pit of your stomach and gnaws at your heart. He doesn’t know the intense battle your emotions are having with your brain—right in front of him—to stay silent before you truly say something you cannot take back. 

“ Go back inside. I’m heading home,” you say simply, not wanting to dwell on this conversation any longer. You feared what might come of it if you didn’t.

“ No. I'm walking you home,” he shakes his head firmly, his tone matching in conviction. 

“ No, you're not,” you reply, turning to make your way down the boulevard. Bucky pinches the bridge of his nose, “ Like hell I'm not, doll. I'm not letting you walk home alone.” 

“I'm not letting you walk me home. I don't want you to,” you say adamantly as your feet start moving. Bucky is right beside you as they do, not letting you get away,“ I don't care what you want or don't want. I'm walking you home and that's final.” His voice leaves no room for argument. 

The martinis in your system don’t particularly give a damn, but it is enough to quiet you for the time being. Your speed increases slightly, but Bucky can match it easily. For a moment you consider running—as ridiculous as an idea that may be. 

The sharp patter of your footsteps against the pavement synchronizes with the thudding of his as they mingle down the boulevard. The city sounds around you are an otherwise low hum of the occasional car and distant conversation. The city still whispering its signs of life at this time of night.

The walk to your place isn’t too far. And you know if you don’t shake him off soon there would be an unpleasant conversation awaiting you when you arrive.  

“ Don’t you have someone waiting on you at the bar?” You remind him with a little sting to your heart. Secretly hoping this wasn’t the reason he’d walk away from you.

Bucky frowns, thinking for a moment before speaking,“ What? You mean Darla?” The sound of her name on his lips bristles you. 

“ Yeah, her,” the word her spills from your lips as if it was venomous. Bucky catches that and is taken aback for a second. His footsteps coming to a stop. You push yourself to keep walking. Taking this as a sign to ignore the tiny part of your brain that begs you to stop moving.

Not a minute later Bucky strides to your side,“ Doll…are you jealous?” He asks with the tiniest bit of doubt, his small smile overshadowing it. 

“ Me? Ha! No,” your denial is quick—too quick. His small smile turns into a wide grin. You’ve just confirmed his conjecture,“ Yes, you are.” 

“ No. Go ahead and marry her for all I care. I won’t be at the wedding anyway,” you don’t mean what you say and yet you said it anyway. Playing up the indifference act you’ve dawned. 

“ You won’t be at my wedding?” He’s not upset when he responds, he's amused. He has to hold back his laughter at your train of thought. This gets under your skin and you grumble a snippy no before picking up your pace. You’re now imagining Darla in a wedding dress next to Bucky in his suit and it does devastating things to you. 

“ That’s impossible.”

“ How so? I just won’t go.”

His tone takes a more serious turn when he replies, “ It’ll be hard to have a wedding without the bride there.” You come to a halt, your head whipping so fast to look at him you almost gave yourself whiplash.

“ What?” You manage to find your voice. His gaze softens,“ You heard me, doll.” He’s being completely sincere—you know this deep down. However, there’s still a part of you that doesn’t believe this is happening. That believes this to be a dream.

“ You don’t mean that.”

“ I do. If you were to ask me where I see forever—I see it with you.”

His confession takes your breath away. The mere admission of him thinking of you as his eternity—as the one he wants beside him for life—your heart could burst at how delightfully overwhelmed it feels. 

“ But you—” you start and his pointer finger gently presses against your lips to shush you. He already knows what you’re about to bring up and he needs to nip it before your drunken mind jumps to wilder conclusions.

“ She’s just a friend. She’s a secretary at the SSR—nothing more. I was dancing with her to be nice. Honestly, I was trying to find a polite way to leave her and get back to you until I saw you dancing with that guy,” he removes his finger from your lips once he’s done explaining. At the mention of Thomas, his jaw clenches briefly and annoyance flashes in his eyes. 

It dawns on you why he was glaring at Thomas earlier. The realization of Bucky having felt as jealous as you did sends your heart ablaze. Your heart had gone through so much tonight, you were surprised it hadn’t gone into cardiac arrest already. 

“ Who’s the jealous one now?” you tease, an almost giddy smile on your face. 

Bucky rolls his eyes playfully,“ Yeah, doll. Unlike you, I’ll admit it. I was jealous. I don’t like seeing you with another man. Laughing and dancing—should've been me, not him,” he says stepping closer to you. His eyes reflected pure adoration.

“ Why didn’t you ask me?” your question comes out quieter than you’d like. Enamored with the way he’s looking at you. You can barely focus on anything else. 

“ Because when it comes to you I get all nervous and worked up. It's like I’m a punk again—a dumb kid with a crush. I don’t want to mess it up with you, Y/n. I would never want to do anything to lose you. Guess I got too caught up in doing things right I didn’t do anything at all,” Bucky opens up to you, his answer shedding away any last bit of hesitance in your body.

“ Bucky…I wish it would’ve been you instead too,” you say softly, stepping closer until you’re only a few inches away from him. His features match yours in fondness as he gently reaches out to grab hold of your waist, pulling you even closer, and closing the final bit of distance between you.

Your hands rest delicately at his chest. You can feel the way his heart races under your fingertips, drawing out a small gasp from you. Knowing you had this effect on him delighted you. It made you wonder how long you had been making him feel this way—and how long you had missed the signs.

“ Told you. I’m a dumb kid with a crush,” he reiterates with a soft chuckle. You giggle at his words, beaming dreamily at the way that all of this is real. That Bucky has feelings for you, and you two can only grow closer from here on out.

For a split second his eyes dart to your mouth. Having you so close like this tempts Bucky to no end. Everything he’s ever wanted to do with you crosses his mind and it drives him crazy. He has no idea where to start or if he’ll even let himself start anywhere. 

Your body thrums with anticipation as it waits for him to make a move.  

Bucky ends up tenderly kissing your forehead, “ Come on, doll. Let’s get you home.” Your lips form a light pout, disappointed his lips didn’t touch yours. He sees your reaction and he laughs, giving your hips a light squeeze, “ Doll, our first kiss will happen after you get that alcohol out of your system,” he says, one hand reaching up to lightly swipe at your nose—finding you endearing. 

“ We’ve already had our first kiss.” 

“ Doll we—oh, we have…” 

The memory of you two drunkenly kissing in the medical tent on one particularly lonely night during the war flashes through your minds. The already tension between you rising to a palpable form. 

There’s a mischievous glint in his eyes,“ Still. If I’m being honest, I’m not stopping at just one kiss. So let’s wait until you’re sober, alright?”

“ Not stopping?” Your tone is playful as you pry for further explanation. 

“ Oh no, doll. I'll be doing so much more than kissing you,” he smirks, his words laced with suggestion. His hand goes out to cup your face, caressing your cheek. It warms under his fingertips at his implication. The air around you buzzes with electricity. 

He can tell where your mind went and he’s enjoying every second of it,“ Yeah, doll. Like taking you out on a proper date,” he winks at you. A genuine laugh erupts from you at the way he side steps what he really meant. He joins you in the laughter, his eyes telling you the truth of what he really desires.

You. Every bit of you.

You interlace your fingers with his, knowing deep down he has a point. When you kiss Bucky you want to be all there. You want all your senses to be fully awake to drink in every bit of him. 

Especially if it goes farther than a kiss.

Bucky moves you over so he’s walking on the outermost part of the sidewalk, holding your interlaced hands to his waist so you’re pressed right up against his side as you walk. You tease and playfully banter all the way to your apartment. The unspoken promises and unmistakable yearning for one another dancing around you two. Assuring you there was so much more to come. 

[sitepathos]

From Gold to Mold

Chapter 7: The Realization

A/N: Thank you to everyone who’s enjoyed this series! When I had the idea for this, I had NO idea it was going to be as well loved as it’s become. I love and appreciate every like, follow, reblog, and ask!

As Bruce walks down the staircase and steps foot on the foyer’s marble floor, he realizes that something’s wrong. Well, he’s known that something’s been wrong for four years now, but he’s attributed it to his pile of never-ending cases, particularly the murder of the Joker and Harley Quinn, which has been eating away at him ever since that night and has occupied every corner of his mind. It’s been four years since he discovered their remains and he’s still in the dark, the only piece of evidence he has is some strange substance reminiscent of mold found within Joker’s remains.

What he’s currently feeling, however? It’s not the need to solve a case that threatens his city. It’s as if something is wrong with the manor itself, like there’s something missing. Something that he’s never paid much attention before but has always known is there, and now that something’s wrong, he can’t help but rack his brain for what it could be.

As he tries to thinks, he walks to the kitchen to find a snack (something pre-made, Alfred’s permanently banned him from ever cooking in his kitchen ever again) when he hears voices. Three voices, to be precise, and they’re definitely amused by something. As he gets closer, he can make out what they’re saying.

“I can’t believe he of all people would have this,” Tim says, an obvious smile intertwined in his tone.

“Hey, we’re all free to do what we want in our spare time,” Dick responds. “And if anyone in this house has earned spare time, it’s Alfred.”

“I’m not saying he shouldn’t do stuff he likes on his time off,” Tim quickly counters. “I’m just saying that I never would’ve expected him to be into stuff like this.”

“For once, I agree with Drake,” Damian, the third voice, interjects. “Pennyworth is a man of refined taste. For him to indulge in this childish entertainment is entirely unexpected. Only mindless buffoons would subject themselves to this drivel.”

“Hey,” Time exclaims, offended. “I happen to enjoy this ‘childish entertainment.’”

“My point stands. Once again, you prove your inferiority and poor breeding, Drake.”

That’s when Bruce decides to step in before a fight can break out in the kitchen (again) and enters, all three of his sons, who are crowding around something on the kitchen island, turning to him.

“Hey, B,” Dick says with his usual smile adorning his face.

“Hey,” Tim adds, glaring at Damian.

“Hello, Father,” Damian says, not sparing a glance at Tim and a ghost of a smirk on his face.

“Hello, boys. Is something wrong? I heard something about Alfred.”

“No, we just learned something amazing,” Dick answers, practically buzzing with joy. “You’ll never guess what Alfred’s into!”

This certainly catches his attention. He’s known his faithful butler his entire life and likes to think he knows everything about the man who raised him after his parents were killed. To find something out about the man he didn’t know before is something that’s definitely worth his attention.

“What,” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

The three of them part, revealing a laptop on the granite top. More specifically, it’s Alfred’s laptop. It’s strange enough that the man who takes the care of his kitchen as gospel would leave something like his laptop out in the open (especially since he’s always on their case about snooping on each other’s personal lives), but what really blows his mind is what’s on the screen: the menu for what appears to be a video game. It features what appears to be a derelict ship floating in space with soft music playing in the background and several options on the lower part and what he’s assuming is the title on the upper part: Salvage Rights.

“Alfred plays video games,” he asks, completely bewildered at the discovery.

“That’s what I said,” Tim exclaims. “I mean, I think it’s great if he wants to do that. I just didn’t expect him to be a gamer.”

“Don’t group Pennyworth in with your group of pathetic mouth breathers who don’t know what is fiction and what is reality.”

“So, what’s it about,” he asks, trying to stop a fight from breaking out in the kitchen that will net all of them in trouble.

“I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers, but from what I can tell you, it take place in the future after the sun imploded, forcing several fleets of ships to flee to a nearby star cluster, but only a few planets in the cluster can support human life naturally and several of them hold valuable resources, causing a war between three different factions to break out for control over the cluster,” his explains excitedly, making Bruce smile at the sight of his third son acting like a young man his age should. “You play the captain of a prospecting vessel that salvages derelict ships and during a salvage of a ship that dates back to before the sun imploding, you find something valuable that could determine who wins the war.”

“How absurd,” Damian mutters. “That story is utterly ridiculous. Whoever wrote it should be ashamed.”

“Who should be ashamed, Master Damian,” Alfred asks as he enters the kitchen.

“Whoever wrote the story for this absurd game you are apparently fond of,” his youngest son retorts.

“None of us thought you were into video games, Alfred,” Tim adds.

“I wouldn’t say that, Master Timothy, but I know its creator and I know he worked very hard to make the game you see before you. It makes me so happy that he finally achieved his goals and I want to do my part to support him. I hope he gets all the acclaim and recognition he rightfully deserves deserves.”

“Whoa, you know who he created Salvage Rights,” Tim asks, mesmerized. “Who?”

“It’s someone you all know: Master Y/N.”

Y/N? All of a sudden, he realizes a mistake he made earlier: Tim isn’t his third child, Y/N is. Wait, when was the last time he talked to his firstborn? Hell, when was the last time he talked to you? Wait, what do you even look like? How old are you?

This starts a cascade of realizations: he’s never celebrated your birthday. Or Christmas. Or even had a gala for you like all his children got to welcome them in his family.

“Y/N’s a video game developer,” Tim asks, breaking Bruce out of his thoughts. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, that’s because none of you have ever had a conversation with the poor lad,” Alfred retorts, his look of disapproval returning. “I never knew it was possible to not say a single word to someone you’ve lived with for years, but you showed me such a thing was possible.”

Bruce looks to his sons and upon seeing their expressions, he knows that none of them have talked to you, either. This definitely doesn’t bode well for them. Or you.

“Well, we should go talk to him,” Dick pipes up, trying to stay upbeat, but he’s obviously upset at this realization. He moves to leave the kitchen. “Is he in his room?”

“His room isn’t in the family wing,” Alfred responds, stopping Dick’s stride.

That’s when Bruce realizes that he’s never seen you coming or going from any of the bedrooms in their part of the manor. If your room isn’t with theirs, where do you sleep?

“His room is on the other side of the manor,” Alfred says, as if he read Bruce’s mind.

And with that, he leaves the kitchen and all four of them follow the butler, their steps heavy and slow from guilt. Bruce’s guilt only grows as they walk through corridor after corridor, eventually replace clean and pristine for dirty and decrepit. With a manor as large as Wayne Manor, cleaning is a battle, requiring an army to maintain it, but with Alfred being the only one, Bruce told the man to leave the uninhabited wings alone and only clean them when they have guests, which Bruce tries to keep to a minimum as someone in his position in Gotham’s high society can get away with.

Have you been staying in this forgotten part for the manor ever since you came to live here? With only dust and pests for company?

After he talks to you, he intends on moving you to the bedroom next to his; it’s been empty for years and has been going to waste. When you move into that room, he’ll check on you everyday, waking you up himself and walking you down to the dining room for breakfast every morning.

“Why is his room so far from ours, Pennyworth,” Damian asks.

“Well, when he first moved in, none of the rooms in the family wing weren’t fit to be slept in,” Alfred explains. “By the time I prepared a room for him, Master Timothy came to live with us and Master Y/N said he could have that room. Every time I finally got a room prepared for him, Master Bruce had a new addition to the family. By the time you joined the family, he insisted he remained where he was.”

That stopped all further questions, leaving them to process the new information in silence.

“Here we are,” Alfred announces when they reach a door on the far side of the manor.

Bruce decides that he needs to be the one to talk to you first, so he knocks on the door.

“Y/N,” he says after knocking once. “Can I come in?”

That’s when Alfred opens the door and before Bruce can say anything, he looks inside to see not only you not in there, but your room’s the size of a broom closet compared to the rooms all of them enjoy. One thing he notices is that the room’s surprisingly clean compared to the rest of the wing it resides in; based off the lingering smell of cleaning products, Alfred must’ve cleaned it recently.

“What a hovel,” Damian remarks as they enter, looking around.

“Indeed,” Alfred responds. “This is a guest room we specifically use for guests who are unwanted.”

Those words hit Bruce harder than Bane ever could. When Damian first moved in, he complained that the size was “insufficient” and he needed more room; so, he had a perfectly good bedroom be added on to his room, doubling its size to accommodate his pets, weapons, art supplies, and whatever else he keeps in there, instead of going to you and leaving you to rot in a guest room they use for people that aren’t wanted here.

He looks over at the bed to see the painfully small mattress is definitely past its prime, worn out from years of use. The bed frame isn’t a better, either based on the fact it looks like it’ll break at any moment. He presses a hand on the mattress and winces when he feels the large indention and hears the loud squeaking.

Good god, how did you even sleep on this thing for a day let alone for years? Not only does it look uncomfortable, but it’s barely big enough to hold a child, let alone… whatever you are.

“It’s pretty empty in here,” Tim remarks as he examines the dresser. “Guess there’s not a lot of room for decorations.”

“While there were very little decorations in here while he was living here, he took almost everything with him when he left, Master Dick. Very little was left behind. He told me I could destroy everything he left behind, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw away anything of his.”

Every second in here makes Bruce feel more horrible at how he’s treated his son. He needs to find you. Immediately.

“Where is he, Alfred,” Bruce asks, eager to find you and find some way to make amends.

“I’m afraid he doesn’t live in the manor anymore, Master Bruce. Master Y/N left us some time ago.”

Once again, Bruce feels like he’s been sucker punched in the gut, leaving him breathless. You moved out?

“When,” Dick asks, clearly upset.

“Four years ago. The night he graduated from Gotham Academy.”

“That’s when I graduated,” Tim realizes.

Bruce remembers that: four years ago on the night Tim was set to graduate, he and all of his children (well, all except you) were busy combing Gotham for Joker and Harley’s killer, listening in on countless criminals celebrating the Clown Prince of Crime’s demise.

Christ, he can remember that, but not his own son? He knew he wasn’t the best father in the world (despite the mug that says otherwise courtesy of Dick), but he had no idea he had failed one person so much. How much he failed his firstborn son.

“Wait,” Bruce spits out. “If he graduated and none of us were there, who was with him?”

Oh god, if Alfred says no one was with him, he actually cry in front of all of them. To know that his son had no one to celebrate his big night would drive him off the edge.

“I was, Master Bruce.” Hearing that makes him feel a bit better, but not enough to really do anything about the pit of guilt building in his stomach. The butler pulls out his phone and types on it before holding it up for them to see. “This is him walking with his classmates.”

He watches the video of you (fuck, you’re so much older than he remembers) wearing the traditional black and gold gown for all Gotham Academy graduates (he sees the usual black and gold cap has been decorated, but he can’t see from this angle), walking in line with your fellow classmates, all of them wearing caps and gowns.

That’s when he realizes that there’s no pictures of you anywhere in the manor. He instantly thinks of the last family portrait he had commissioned (around the time Damian moved in) hanging above the mantle in the living room, which has him sitting in an elegant white and gold trimmed cushioned chair in the center with a ten-year-old Damian on his right, Barbara in her wheelchair on his left, and behind him from left to right is Cass, Steph, Tim, Jason, Dick, and Alfred.

A family portrait that he treasures not including you. Right now, it feels like he can cry and throw up at the same time.

“Here’s him receiving his diploma,” Alfred says as he swipes right, displaying another video.

Sure enough, the video playing shows the headmaster calling your name (Gould, not Wayne), you walking to the man and receiving your diploma with your left hand and shaking the headmaster’s hand with your right, and walking back to your chair. Each new revelation about you makes the cavern of guilt he’s standing in even deeper; finding out that your last name isn’t his and must be your mother’s, telling the world that there’s no connection between you and him, even though half your DNA came from him.

“A staff member was taking pictures of the graduates as they shook hands with the headmaster and she was kind enough to send it to me,” Alfred says as he swipes again, revealing a picture of you and the headmaster.

He only needs a split second to commit your details to memory. H/c sticking out from your cap that he can tell you’ve decorated and e/c that must come from your mother. And that’s when he realizes that while the color is different, their shape matches his mother’s perfectly. And isn’t that just twisting the knife in his gut.

“And this picture was taken after the ceremony.”

That’s when he sees you as perfectly as he can, standing next to Alfred, who is at an event that he should’ve been at, not looking to arrest someone who killed the man who’s terrorized Gotham for two decades. Nothing happened that night, he should’ve taken the night off to see both of his sons graduate, cheering them on and hugging them after receiving their diplomas.

“Is he still in Gotham,” Damian asks, his voice even, but Bruce can tell his youngest son feels guilty, something he’s only expressed a handful of times during his stay here.

“No, Master Damian, I’m afraid Master Y/N went back home.”

“‘Home,’” Dick exclaims. “This is his home!”

On one hand, Bruce wants to agree with Dick, that the manor is the only place you should call “home,” but on the other hand, he knows that with the way they treated you, he would understand why you’d want to leave him. Leave all of them.

“I’m afraid he felt differently. He told me that he’d been looking forward to going back to the home he lived with his mother. Apparently, the lack of affection and attention from his so-called family made him plan to move back when he turned eighteen, but I was able to convince him to stay so he could graduate.”

It made sense. After being ignored for years, why would you stay when you could leave? Bruce knows this, but now, all he wants is for you to move back in so he can give you all the love you can handle. He wants to have inside jokes with you, to give you a shoulder to cry on when the world overwhelms you, to take you out on quality time with just you and him.

He wants to do all the things for you that he does for his other kids. Things that he should’ve been doing for you from day one. He pulls out his phone and scrolls through his contacts only to find that you’re not only in his house, but you’re not even in his phone. He hasn’t had a single conversation with you in person, why would he think he’s had a conversation with you over text?

“Where is he now,” Bruce asks, his voice hollow and empty even to him.

Right now, all he wants is to learn where you are and try to find some way to make his transgressions up to you.

“I was led to believe Batman is the ‘world’s greatest detective,’” Alfred retorts, an eyebrow raised. “Are you unable to find your son on your own?” Bruce looks at him, making the butler sigh. “He moved back to his home in Goodsprings, Nevada.”

He didn’t even know where you came from before coming to live here. If there was an Olympic event for shitty fathers, Bruce would take home the gold in a landslide right now.

“Of course, you may have a golden opportunity to see him tomorrow night.” Alfred pulls his phone towards him, types something on it, and shows it to them again.

On the screen is a website for something called the Gamer’s Gala, a massive event held yearly where gamers go to see what new video games are planned to be released in the future and where game developers have an opportunity to win the “Golden Joystick,” a trophy given based off their game’s success during the year.

He scrolls through the website to find all the games up for awards and sees Salvage Rights by Gould Games in top contention for Indie Game of the year! He’s so excited to see you’ve found success in your passion and wants to see you walk on stage and accept the award, cementing your place as one of the greatest developers in the world.

According to the website, it’s being held in Metropolis this year due it being hosted completely by Lex Corp and that gets his blood boiling. No doubt this is some attempt to win public favor after yet another failed attempt to kill Superman and he thinks by doing this, people will forget all about whatever illegal activities he was up to his neck in. Had he known this sooner, he would’ve pulled the right to host the event out from under Lex’s feet, sparing no expense to ensure it was the biggest ceremony in the event’s history.

And of course, he’d invite you to stay at the manor the entire time, a room prepared just for you. Right next to his.

“The event is tomorrow night. I believe Batman can take one night off so Bruce Wayne can attend.” Alfred pulls something out from his pocket and holds it up to Bruce. “Master Y/N was kind enough to send me a ticket so I could be there for the biggest night of his life.”

Bruce takes the ticket and looks at it closer. According to the glossy golden ticket, it’s awarding the recipient special seating at a section of the hall reserved only for the friends, families, and special guests of candidates and offering them access to the Developer Lounge, a section of the convention center that only game developers and their guests can enter, where they can eat and drink all they want for free, all of it paid for by Lex Luthor.

When he gets back to the office, he plans on making that man’s life hell. It was bad enough that he somehow came in four years ago and undercut WE with products that he knows for certain were based off his company’s but he has no idea how Luthor was able to get his hands on classified technical specs, costing him and his company several contracts and millions in revenue for that fiscal year, but now, he’s gone and made the biggest night of his son’s life even better, something that he should’ve done.

This ticket is not way of witnessing the greatest moment in your life, but to try to repair his relationship with you.

“Why don’t we all go,” Dick pipes up, looking very uncomfortable. “We should all be there with for him. You know, as a family!”

“I agree with Greyson,” Damian adds. “We should all be there.”

“I’ll get us tickets,” Tim says as he pulls out his phone and begins to type on it.

“I think Master Bruce should go alone,” Alfred says, making all of them look at the butler. “This is a very delicate situation and if the entire family goes, it could make things worse. For now, allow your father to speak to your brother by himself.

The pained looks on his boys’ faces makes him feel even worse than he already does. He knows that they want to make up for how they treated you just like him, but right now, he’s not even sure how you’ll react seeing him, let alone the entire family.

He’ll do whatever it takes to bring you home so they can show you the love you deserved back then. And then, they’ll all be one happy family.

“Thanks, Alfred,” he says as he carefully tucks the ticket into his coat, treating it like a precious artifact and not a flimsy piece of paper. “I have to get ready.”

As he leaves, he makes a note to give the butler a pay rise. Not just for giving him the ticket meant for him, but for helping him realize his mistake and for being there for his son.

As he heads to his room to pack a bag, he makes arrangements to stay at a penthouse as the hotel connected to the convention center so he can get there quickly and hopefully get to talk to you before the award ceremony. He also purchases your game in order to have something to talk to you about, hoping you’ll be touched by him supporting your career as a developer (he’ll also carefully analyze the game to high heaven in hopes of learning more about you) and starts drafting plans for Alfred to prepare your new room, allowing the butler to buy anything and everything he thinks you’d like, from furniture to decorations.

He briefly thinks about calling Clark and asking him to monitor the convention hall for any trouble from Lex, but quickly decides against it. Y/N is his son and he’ll protect him with his own hands, not relying on the Kryptonian. If Lex tries any shit during the ceremony, he’ll pull every underhanded trick in the book to buy out Lex Corp only to raze it to the ground and salt the earth where it once stood.

Whatever it takes, he’ll see you accept the trophy you so rightly deserve and after that, he’ll talk to you fact to face and beg you to forgive him, take you into his arms and apologize for not being the father you needed him to be. And after that, he’ll bring you back to the manor, where you’ll stay in a room next to his, where him and your siblings will keep you company from day in to day out. And when he brings you home, he’ll commission another family portrait that’s large enough to take up an entire wall and has you in the center with all of them surrounding you.

At last, they’ll be the family you deserve. The family you should’ve had when you became a part of their family.

Tag List: @space1crow @bat1212 @minkyungseokie @nosyrobin @bunbunboysworld @kitty-from-daaaa-voidddd @feral-childs-word @phoenixgurl030 @soriansick @hellcatsworld @prettyboys247 @marsmabe @paolexsstuff @c0l1fl0r @starryperson @kore-of-the-underworld @kiarst @vanessa-boo @moxiemy @greatwhisperspaper @tatsuri-zomushiki @starsdotalk @luna57765 @jsprien213 @lizz-lrm @chericia @lunaluz432 @orbitingtraveler @roseytheteacup @bellethesleepypotato @exactlynumberonekryptonite @fantasyhopperhea @bronanitf @ellaprime7 @justwannabecat @ratchetprime211 @bunbunbread

[wonderjanga]

Marvel Can Be Intense

Billy wants these little guys to go into heroics being the best hero they can be. He just doesn’t realize that while he has good intentions, he can come off as kind of intense. Like the time he tried teaching Wally how to vibrate his entire body through an object.

Marvel: *holding Tim by the neck with one hand while his other hand is crackling with electricity* “You better hurry up Wally or else I’ll blow his brains out on the floor!”

Kid Flash: “WHAT DUDE IM TRYING.”

Robin!Tim: “HE’S BURNING MY HAIR! I THINK HE’S ACTUALLY GOING TO KILL ME IF YOU DON’T HURRY!”

Kid Flash: “I’m TRYING!” *only got his arm through it*

Marvel: “Try harder!”

Or the time he tried teaching Stargirl how to fly one of the ships.

Marvel: “Alright, so the best type of practice is getting it firsthand so what you’re gonna do is fly straight through that asteroid belt.” *points to the belt*

Stargirl: *sounds super concerned* “What? I can’t do that!”

Marvel: “Yeah you can! You just gotta believe. Now do it.”

Stargirl: “I just told you, I can’t. I can barely fly this thing already. Flying through an asteroid belt would completely total the entire thing and we might be stranded out here for God’s sake.”

Marvel: *nods head* “I see. I see. I get your concerns. So instead I’ll just…” *grabs the acceleration and cranks it all the way up and they start flying to the belt*

Stargirl: “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” *grabs the steering wheel and starts making the ship dodge the asteroids*

Marvel: “You’re doing great!” *sunny ahh smile as if he hadn’t put the both of them in mortal danger*

Later…

Marvel: “That was wonderful for your first time, Stargirl.” *looking at the dents in the ship*

Stargirl: “You’re a psychopath.” *still a little shell shocked*

Marvel: “Nuh uh. Here, have some candy.” *hands her some candy*

Then there was the time Beast Boy was interviewed.

Interviewer: “So, who would you say is your toughest teacher? Batman?”

Beast Boy: “Oh, definitely Captain Marvel.”

Interviewer: *slightly surprised* “May I ask why?”

Beast Boy: “Well, he’s a psychopath. Like actually. Like don’t get me wrong. He’s really nice. He makes us cookies. He’s like super kind, but when it comes to training, he’s a complete psychopath. Like the other day he said he’d tear off Starfire’s arms if I couldn’t complete a training exercise. I did complete it don’t get me wrong, and he gave me cookies afterwards, but you don’t just threaten to tear off another person’s arms!”

[jaegerdilf]

pairings: choso kamo x f! reader

warnings: oral + virginity + non / dubcon + cumplay

💌: choso has been rotting my brain so so bad n i need to write smth for him 😵‍💫 pls accept this as my formal intro to the jjk writing community on here

to say choso is inexperienced is an understatement. he can count the amount of times he’s jerked off on one hand and he’s never even had sex, but ever since he met you all he wants is to bury his cock inside your cunt and fuck you til he’s spent.

it becomes increasingly more difficult for choso to resist taking what he wants, blushing a deep red every time you speak to him because just seconds before he was picturing you beneath him, pussy stretched beyond it’s limits as he fucks you raw and fills your womb with load after load of his sticky cum, wanting nothing more than to use you for his pleasure.

he bides his time, growing closer to you and gaining your trust, subtly sinking his grasp deeper and deeper into you before suggesting you let him fuck you. what he doesn’t know, is that you crave his dick just as bad, spending your nights humping a pillow to the thought of him rearranging your insides.

you make your move first, “accidentally” grinding against choso’s sensitive bulge or pressing your tits into his arms, tired of waiting around for him to do something and each interaction leaves him impossibly hard, seconds away from blowing his load and cumming in his pants.

he’s finally had enough when you bend over and flash your panties, his eyes locked on the wet spot on the gusset and he nearly salivates while staring at your cunt.

choso wastes no time forcing you to your knees, watching as your eyes glaze over and noticing how eager you are to obey.

“oh,” he says, laughing a little when the realization that you’re a cockslut hits him, “you wanted this, huh?”

you nod dumbly, unable to tear your eyes away as he frees his cock. the veins make your mouth water but his thickness scares you, wondering how the hell you’re meant to take that. it’s almost like he can read your mind and it makes you shudder when your hear him speak. “don’t worry sweetheart, i’ll make it fit.”

that’s the only warning you receive before choso forces his entire length down your throat, not bothering to ask for permission. he uses you like a toy, ignoring your gags in favor of focusing on the feeling of your throat tightening up around him, grunting when you use your tongue to trace a vein on the underside of his cock. you do your best to keep your eyes open and on his face. he isn’t usually expressive but it seems as though the white hot pleasure he feels has done a number on him, brows furrowed and his jaw tight while you work your mouth over him.

he can feel his orgasm approaching as he fucks your throat and reluctantly pulls you off his cock, a whiney moan escaping him as you suckle the tip before releasing him from your mouth.

“why’d you make me stop?” you pout, voice raspy from having your mouth violated. you’re itching to make him cum and drain his balls until he can’t anymore, desperate to finally taste him.

choso’s torso is flushed and covered in sheen of sweat, the view making your thighs clench while you wait for him to do something. “made you stop ‘cause i’m gonna cum on your pretty face.”

he curses when you look up at him through wet lashes, tears threatening to fall, tongue hanging out in preparation for his thick load and it makes him cum almost instantly. he doesn’t even have to stroke his cock before it’s twitching and he’s emptying his balls on your face. his load is thick and seems never ending, globs of it draping over your lashes and covering your face, making you moan when some makes its way into your mouth.

choso thinks he’s in love.

in love with how you drag your fingers across your face and slip the cum coated digits in your mouth. the urge to kiss you is strong and he gives into it immediately, pressing his lips to your clumsily before you take the lead and slide your tongue into his mouth, causing him to groan into the kiss when he tastes himself on your tongue.

[eddiernunson]

I Can Do it With a Broken Heart | Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader | 18+ | PREVIEW

NOW POSTED

Summary: You and Eddie have both had crap luck on dates lately, nothing that can't be fixed with a strawberry milkshake. However, he gets asked out on a date and it goes well...until it turns your life on its head and he forgets how to pick up the phone. You don't even care that he's dating someone else you just want your best friend back.

Warnings: idiots in love, best friends to lovers, ANGST, brief EddiexChrissy, ooc Chrissy, attempted SA, bestfriend!Steve, and needy, desperate smut that makes it all worth it.

Excerpt here:

The puff of smoke that leaves his lips as you approach him should not be this gorgeous, it’s practically unfair. “Hey, Eds.” 

He dusts the filter, killing it on the cement table he sits at as he blows out one more puff. “Hey, sweetheart.” 

Just from that particular look in his eye, you can tell something is on his mind. “You okay, there, Munson?” 

He smirks, effortlessly standing up. “I suppose. I’m not sure how to react. Or how you’ll react.” 

Your brows meet your hairline, watching his mind move at a million miles per hour. “Ok, Eddie this better be about a new class of creatures in DnD, or something, because you’re scaring me.”

He smiles, nodding his head over to the halls that lead toward the front door of the campus. “Someone asked me out on a date, earlier, today.” 

Your brows furrow, biting back the jealousy that eats at your chest. Every little part of you holds back the monster that threatens to class its way out, to snarl and hiss at every girl that even so much as looks at him wrong. It’s hard to bite it back, to choke on it purposely, but if you must, you will. 

It tastes like venom as you swallow it back down. “Oh, who?”

A faint pink spreads across Eddie’s cheeks, much to your dismay. Not once, in your fuck, what, seven, eight years, of friendship have you ever managed to see Eddie blush. (Just once but it was when you nearly walked in on him jerking himself off a few short years ago.) “Who?” 

“Um Chrissy. Chrissy Cunningham?” 

Your jaw drops, but your gut falls through the floor. You swear you hear it smash through the tilted floors and fall into the depths of hell. 

“She asked you out?” 

“Hey! Don’t act so surprised! A cheerleader could like me!” 

That was the last thing on your mind. Of course a cheerleader could like Eddie, they’d be stupid not to. No. Every other girl that Eddie has either slept with, or gone on a date with brought no worry to your head, competition, per say. But a sweet girl like Chrissy, one that bore pretty blonde curls, a sweet smile and a sweet disposition, this is like your worst nightmare come true. 

Thanks to the notion of living in a small town, you could recall 99% of the names that Eddie had told you, whether they be hookups or a date. Most of them didn’t intimidate you, only because, selfishly, you could nitpick at things you think wouldn’t work out with Eddie. Whether they were too vapid, too shallow, had none of the same interests as him, only shallowly liked him for his looks, or was a bully…you had something to give great comfort to you to prevent that little jealousy monster from clawing its way out. 

This time, your brain wracked itself for some sort of answer. Some sort of flaw in the Queen of Hawkins High that could settle this uneasiness that has taken over your mind. Nothing. Nothing. 

“I’m not surprised a cheerleader could like you, I’m surprised that Chrissy Cunningham asked you out,” you answer candidly, watching in step with him to where you supposed was his van. “I’m guessing you said yes?”

“I’d be crazy not to!” Eddie answered sheepishly, tugging at the sleeves of his leather jacket. “I’m taking her out on Friday night.” 

“Ah, you’ll tell Steve to take Creeper off hold for us, then?”

Eddie stops mid stride, faltering, his brows pinched as he gives you those big brown eyes. “Shit. It totally slipped my mind.” 

This is also new. Even as his dates would happen any previously made plans with him were always a priority. You just hope this isn’t a new habit of his. 

“We’ll do it on Saturday, yeah?” 

You nod, giving him the comfort you suddenly find yourself craving. From the pep in his step, the rosiness of his cheeks, the warm glint in his eyes, you can tell that he’s truly excited. As a best friend, you tried to be happy for him, however hard it is to make the smile on your face even remotely convincing. 

Eddie curls his arm around your shoulder, tugging you along with him for what is probably another afternoon in his room, clouded by a haze of weed. 

You smoked more than usual, if anything to allow his excitement and plans for his big date in two days to buzz into the background, the bong rippling through your lungs as a punishment for yourself. 

-

Final word count is about 24k so I think I'll post on the 15 to give my editor a fighting chance. If you want to be tagged let me know <3

[leonsdolly]

Dog Days

Leon Kennedy x fem!reader

Synopsis: You're sick, but Leon's here to take care of you.

CW: fluff, comfort

WC: 785

A/n: looks like everyone's sick rn !!! ruru, this one's for you since you also got sick (╥﹏╥) sending you all the love and best wishes so that you can feel better @laceycoffins (๑-﹏-๑)

“Leon…” Your whines fly weakly through the room and hit your boyfriend’s ears in the living room. “Leonnnn…” It takes everything in you to muster up enough energy to call out his name.

You hear a sigh before the sound of his footsteps make their way to your shared bedroom. “Everything okay, baby?” He internally coos at the sight of you laying in bed with a cool rag over your forehead and thin covers pulled up to your chest. You’re like a woodland creature of sorts, a little dormouse curled up snugly in its burrow for the winter. Except it isn't winter. The scorching early July sun looms over the city, ready to penetrate through your lace curtains and exacerbate the fever plaguing your body. You pout up at him as you feebly lift your arms out for him.

“What do you need, baby?” He chuckles as he takes one of your hands in his. “Just brought you more fluids, changed that washcloth, made your bed ‘til you said it was comfy enough.”

“I need you,” you say like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Which it is. Did he really expect his needy girl to recover through her illness without being pressed up against him 24/7? Would he also let her succumb to the bubonic plague, damning her to a burial pit on the outskirts of a European city in the 14th century? He sighs and lifts the washcloth on your forehead to feel it with the back of his hand. He turns his hand over to rub soothingly at your forehead, and suddenly you're a child again, relishing in your mother's healing touch over your little ailing body while her dramas blare in the background and the aroma of spicy noodle soup invigorates you. You close your eyes, relishing in the relief of his cool touch against your warmed skin. He lifts the blanket up to slide in next to you, and when you open your eyes again, he's wrapping his arms around you.

“Weren't you bitching about how you can't get sick right now?” You snuggle against him, enraptured by the way his warm breath hits the top of your head when he chuckles.

“You’re a pain, you know that?” He drops a kiss on your hair. “Can’t have my baby suffering, that's all there is to it. Even if your snot gets all over me.”

“Whatev-” your croak is intercepted by a coughing fit that erupts from within your lungs.

“Sound like the exorcist girl.”

“You have such a way with words.” You bat your eyes like you’re really head over heels for this man. Which you are.

“Look like her too,” he says pointedly at the god-awful leakage dripping from your nostrils.

“When his love language is words of affirmation.”

He grunts as he snakes an arm over to pluck a lone tissue from the nightstand and pinches your nose with it. “Blow.”

“You know I don’t ever say no to that,” you joke as you close your eyes and force the air to expel through your clogged sinuses and into the flimsy tissue Leon holds.

“Now you sound like a lawn mower. Or a chainsaw.” He tosses the tissue into a spare plastic bag you’re using for trash before vigorously sanitizing his hands which makes you giggle.

You tuck your face into his chest, feeling the cooling fabric against your flushed cheeks. Nothing is quite more miserable than falling ill alone during the hottest months of the year. He’s your relief against the hazy summer world just outside your windows, threatening to seep in and shake your body’s best efforts to maintain homeostasis. Your symptoms are alleviated by his mere presence, and his hands are the most effective treatment in your frail state. His familiar scent envelopes your senses even through your congestion, whispering words of reassurance into the depths of your brain like you’re that little girl laying in your mother’s soft arms again. The bottle  of generic acetaminophen laying on your nightstand fails in efficacy when Leon’s around.

“Love you,” you mumble against his shirt as he repeats it back, and you cling to him for all that you’ve got in your weakened condition. This is your source of wellness, your reason for waking up every morning and braving through the travails of life. The love is mutual - you’re his sole reason for fighting. There’s a plethora of horrors alive and breathing in this world that you’ll never have to witness; he’ll make sure of that until he’s drawn his last breath. But for now, he’s content in just holding you close while the summer heat rages on outside the walls of your home.

[vifilms]

ღ ELECTRAPLAYER ✶ SEVEN INCHES DEEP !

series masterlist collab series w/ the talented, sweet baby — @abbyscherry

tags. eighteen+, strap sex (abby!r), daddy kink, breeding kink, masc!reader but can be read by all, part of a series but can be read on it’s own.

you're gripping her hair like she's your favorite vice, cock stretching her pretty pussy, even prettier ass recoiling against you. toned back arched for you as she moans like a whore. only down side is you can't see the effect you're having on her pretty face. the moans abby continues to let out are enough to hold you over until you can see her sun-kissed skin cheeks again, hundreds of adorable freckles decorating her nose with the soft bend. the one you adore more than the stars in the sky. 

you’d been staring at her all night the day before, entranced with her beauty yet again. it’d just been the two of you, a starry skin, and her. the empty beer bottles kissing the plush grass had her singing, saying some stupid joke but caused you to have a belly laugh. incredibly loud, obnoxious even, but it makes her laugh even harder. 

the sun couldn’t hold their own against her shine. the brightest star you’ve ever known. the sick feeling comes back in moments like these, afraid of the unknown. what if it doesn’t work? nagging and deafening, the thought picks at your brain like zombies off a dead carcass. all of this could end in a moment, just like the rest but you try to believe otherwise when she does shine with blissful ignorance. 

you want to sit in it with her. 

sometimes, it’s hard to believe she’s just yours. there’s not a single soul but you to take care of her, praise her, worship her. every bit of her is for you, but tonight she’s stubborn. batting her eyelashes, give you fuck me eyes. the little brat knew it would work too. 

“is this what you wanted? fucking begging me all day to be fucked. texting me, calling me all day while i train, fuck, making me lose my focus.” you pull harder on her golden hair. a fist full of her hair, a whimpering slut — you can practically see the drool. “and sending me the video of your tits in the shower, slippery and soapy. low fucking blow.” 

“daddy, i just needed you. m’sorry, i—” you slap her ass, effectively shutting her up. well…her words only. abby moans instead, muffled by the sheets beneath her. “what? you’re fucking sorry? had to cut my day early because of you. what was so important it couldn’t wait?” 

“i don’t want to say. it’s really embarrassing.” she shyly remarks. 

“babygirl, i’m seven inches in your pussy. don’t think there should be any more secrets between us.” you slap her ass again and abby  knows what it means. 

better fess up or there’s much more painful punishments to come. 

honestly, abby ponders for a moment. almost taking them up on the offer but her need to cum far outweighs the bratty little devil resting on her shoulder. even if she hadn’t made the decision for herself, you would have gotten abby there. 

your pace increases, fucking her harder, faster. “talking back to me isn’t a smart move. you and i both know it.” you can hear just how wet she is; every thrust sends her closer and closer to what she craves. the pleasure is practically on her tongue. pink, raw lips pleading for the craving she can never satiate. not with you. 

the confession threatening to fall from her tongue, but she bites on it. rather taking the pinching in her mouth than admit she’s wrong. with anyone else, she’s always gotten her way. but with you, you effectively know how to shut her right the fuck up. 

“tell me what i want to hear. what’s in this pretty head angel? hm? does daddy need to fuck your harder? y’know i will.” without prompt, you start piston fucking into her, the flimsy headboard beating against the wall. her moans growing louder, heavier, sluttier. 

“f-fuck, daddy. shit, shit, shit.” abby can’t stop whining, her thighs shaking controllably, back arching ever further, if it was even possible. “please? fuck, i-, need you to spill, daddy. please need to be stuffed full of your cum.” without any buffer you’re pulling her hair so hard, abby’s back collides with your chest. 

your cock filling her up even deeper as you continue to fuck her. she almost pulls your hair out from the root, before her neck to bitting into your neck, sucking, before she lets her tongue soothe over the mark. 

it’s obvious, you’re so close to cumming. you can hardly stand and fuck, the base of the harness is rubbing against your clit. god, combined with abby’s moans. you’re close. 

“fuck yeah? wanna have my babies baby? want me knock you up? pump you full of cum until you just can’t fucking take anymore?” 

“please, god, daddy i-, i’m going to come. can i come? please? fuck, need to come all over your cock. please say yes. god, daddy?” 

the last words are a nail in her coffin. 

“c’mon babygirl. show me how much you want me to breed you. need to know how worthy you are of my cum. my babies. fucking show me how much of a dirty slut you are.” you press your lips on her ear, kissing it softly. “that's right. just for daddy."

hope you enjoyed! mwah mwah!

[crispy-armpit]

✧ 𝖇𝖎𝖌𝖌𝖊𝖘𝖙 𝖋𝖆𝖓 ✧

ʏᴀɴᴅᴇʀᴇ ʀᴏᴄᴋꜱᴛᴀʀ x ɪᴅᴏʟ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

☆⋆｡🎧𖦹 °✩ 🎸⋆⸜♩ - PART 2

⭒ 𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺: 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘶𝘮𝘱 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘶𝘱-𝘢𝘯𝘥-𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳-𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳, 𝘋𝘦𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘴. 𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘢𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩; 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺.

⭒ 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵: 𝘨𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳, (𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘥)𝘺𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦, 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘮/𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 (𝘯𝘰𝘵 on 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳), 𝘬𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥, 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘨𝘰𝘳𝘦, 𝘶𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘬𝘪𝘴𝘴, 𝘫𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘰𝘯𝘦-𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘺, 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘮 + 𝘴𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘮(?)

⭒ 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵: 1,420

⭒ a/n: my first story! hope this is satisfactory :) sorry if my writing is difficult to understand or cringy!!

will you venture down this path?

every few months your manager tells you to attend a celebrity fundraiser gala. 2 years ago you'd never know that these events were only breeding grounds for filthy scandals. now here you are, standing in the corners of a dark ballroom with stars dangling from the ceiling.

you are an idol, the embodiment of purity and song. another puppet forced to take on a false persona of endless joy, most would say. but you? you actually loved the spotlight. to you, that persona is your truth. you bathe in the attention and love of others, you live for it.

so why weren't you with the crowd? why not be in the centre of it all? it's because he was there. he was stealing the place you've shed blood, sweat, and tears for with such ease. effortlessly charming everyone even with that poker face. Deimos. a miracle rockstar who rose in fame shortly after your debut. instantly landing himself in the top #5 leaderboard after the release of his first album.

you were both from the same agency. you've seen him around the company building a couple of times, more frequently during your early pre-debut years. you'd pass brief glances at each other whenever you crossed paths in the hallways or practice rooms. you couldn't understand where your anger and envy emerged from despite never talking to him before.

maybe it was his obnoxious grin?

the fact he surpassed your fame within a shorter time?

his voice that hypnotises even you?

or the copious amount of money he sends during your ig live, begging you to notice the anonymous user?

he had shorter hair back then, dyed a different colour. now he has more accessories, a bigger build, longer hair, and dull eyes that only seemed to brighten whenever you catch him staring at you. you noticed he still stood at around 6'5 (195 cm), even taller with his black platform boots.

you'd try to send telepathic brain frequencies and (not so) intimidating glares at him, seeing if his blank face would falter (it didn't). instead, it made him glance in your direction. your frustration increases, and you blow a raspberry at him without thinking clearly... his reaction? an amused smirk.

instant embarrassment rises to your head. unable to handle the atmosphere inside the room, you immediately run out into the hallway. your brain begins to fuzz up, and you're not thinking clearly- you don't know if it's from the alcohol or the pure shame of blowing a raspberry at him. what are you? a preschooler?

blind to your surroundings, you don't notice the hulking figure walking towards you at full speed. calming yourself, you turn back to the ballroom to end the night. only to bump your face into a sturdy chest, that was not so covered by the tight, black button-up shirt of your rival (his nips were barely out).

you profusely apologise to the stranger until you look up to meet the heterochromatic eyes of Deimos. black and gold with slits, like a feline. and like a feline, his presence was threatening. this was the closest you've ever been to him and you can't help but think that people are blind. why do people crowd around him like he's an oasis? the way his eyes lit up a little too bright, and his face contorts into that of a devoted lover brought no comfort to you.

why does he look like that?

"y/n," he finally pants out, "y/n... you're looking at me."

what the fuck?

"i'm your biggest fan."

backing up uncomfortably, you slowly process his words before replying.

"...you are?"

if Deimos had a tail, it'd be wagging like crazy right now.

"yeah... i've been a fan since your performance at the spring festival. not sure if you remember but..." he trails off.

the spring festival? i don't remember going to any spri- holy shit.

3 years ago. you sang a duet at the town's spring festival with a friend, back then you weren't even a trainee yet. so how coincidental is it that the Deimos was watching you from somewhere in the crowd? that you both ended up in the same agency?

wait. does this mean.... Deimos adores me? as a fan? my fan?

this was too good to be true. your rival, the hottest star among stars, absolutely smitten by you? claiming to be your fan? your ego has never been higher. you decide to indulge him with a conversation.

surprisingly, the conversation was deeply meaningful. you found common interests with him- you shared favourite songs, media, and hobbies... "woman after my own heart," he snickers. soon, any past resentment towards him just.. washes away. gone, buried.

you naturally gravitate towards each other, like the earth and the apple from a tree, a pull. how long has it been since you've enjoyed talking to someone like this? has your bitter envy prevented you from forming a raw friendship with him all this time?

it feels surreal. he asks you for an autograph to commemorate the celebration of a blooming friendship and you agree, asking him if he had a pen and paper. he chuckles and says no, opting to whisk you away into an empty room. not creepy at all.

inside the room, he sits you down on the bed and searches his pockets for an object. you grow curious until he unsheathes out... a combat knife. shitshitshit- he's going to kill me! i knew this was suspicious-

he casually offers you the blade.

"use this." he says while untucking his shirt.

you stare at him as he had grown a second head, "...what?"

he nonchalantly replies while displaying his lower right abdomen, "to write? y'know, your autograph?"

it's official. you were absolutely fucking terrified of Deimos. he tells you to carve out your name on his body as if he was asking for a pack of ketchup at mcdonalds!! you were getting queasy, mind running though all the possible scenarios and options to get out of this.

"you not backing up now are you, songbird?"

his eyes bear holes into your body.

"c'mon, you can't leave me in the edge me like this... just...."

he gently grabs your wrist that held the knife, carefully guiding it to his abdomen. being touched so softly by his scarred, calloused hands made your breathing ragged. he lovingly rubs stars into your forearms as he lightly plunges the tip of the knife into his skin.

you could stab him. you could stab his knife deep into his chest and run away. but what would that mean for you in the future? if you got caught, your career would crumble, sentenced to jail, humiliated and resented by the public. and if you did get away with it, guilt would eat away at your blood-soaked hands forever.

Deimos notices your visible discomfort and tenderly caresses your hair down to your cheeks, wiping away tears you didn't know you had shed. "shh shh... i'm sorry, so so sorry, songbird. you're so kind for not wanting to hurt me... i'll never ask again after this, alright? claim me."

he was so charming. even in this situation.

he presses the knife further into his lower abdomen, drawing blood. you gasp, stuttering out your words "...just my initial, okay?" you look up, he seems disappointed but gives you a genuine smile and nods. you put more pressure onto the hilt of the knife this time, his skin bleeds, not enough to be fatal but enough to scar.

you place your other hand on his toned waist, and you can feel him shivering as the ends of his hair trickle the crown of your head. you finish carving out your initial, dropping the knife on the ground and backing up to look at your work.

it was messy, the blood dripped down to his pants and you swore you felt your heart get... t i n g l e s? he proudly admires your work, pulling down his shirt back in place, still untucked.

Deimos kneels down at the edge of the bed, taking your hands and cupping them on his cheeks. turning his head to tenderly kiss your palm and inhale in the scent.

he looks up at you adoringly with the widest smile on his face, "thank you, songbird. it's very pretty." pulling himself closer to your face, you exchange an unexpectedly passionate kiss, in which your reciprocate. hungry for any form of comfort.

rival-turned-biggest-fan, Deimos smirks into the kiss.

the gravitational pull.

[thebluester2020]

[GI] Kinktober Day 22: "Audience"

Summary: It's no secret that you were Pierro's prettiest and newest little toy. But so many rowdy recruits trying to see if they can play with you as well, Pierro has no choice but to show you that he's the only one who gets to play with you.

Warning(s): Public sex, Exhibitionism, Bimbo!Reader, Trophy wife!Reader, Lightly hinted that the Reader was bought, Praise Kink, Some hints on Infidelity (on the reader's side ngl), Throat-fucking,

Side Note(s): My guilty pleasure has always been trophy wives/husbands. I'm shocked I haven't done something like this sooner low-key.

Oh, it was just bliss being Pierro's pretty little thing on his arm!

Through Pierro's position of being the one who started the Fatui, all with the help of the honorable Tsaritsa, his influence was infinite. No one could touch him and, in turn, you. He had enough money to fund all of your silly little habits whether it was getting into the arts or wanting to clean out stores in the name of getting all the latest clothing items. Your sex life with him was mind-blowing, you've never left the bedroom without either being weak in the knees, absolutely shaking, or feeling as if the only name you could say much less think of was Pierro's.

Life was wonderful. But...as of lately, your husband has been more possessive than he usually would.

He kept mumbling things about "rowdy new recruits not knowing their places" or "them not having enough brain to know that they shouldn't touch his property". You hadn't thought there was a single thing wrong with the new recruits! They were so sweet to you each time you happened to find yourself out and about without Pierro by your side, which was often due to his duties. During those times, the recruits would immediately come up to you and greet you! Sometimes they'd place a hand on your lower backside or even kiss you so kindly on the cheek!

So many times have you gone over to the recruit barracks, they'd so sweetly keep you warm by wrapping their arms around you or even suggest that they all should share a bed with you so that you could truly stay warm.

You thought your silly husband was just being needlessly jealous.

The recruits were friendly and nothing more.

But...apparently, Pierro didn't see it like that. And he was far more jealous than you originally thought he was, to begin with.

. . .

The noises that were currently being forced from your lips were embarrassing, absolutely disgusting as you choked and gagged around Pierro's cock, currently positioned on your knees in front of all of Pierro's recruits regardless of they were old or new. It seemed that your husband catching you and a recruit being too handsy with one another was as big of a deal as you originally thought it would be! But, Pierro was content with showing you as well as alllll of his recruits, both old and new, exactly who his wife belonged to.

"Filthy slut...don't you know who you belong to?" Pierro growled to you, a furious glare in his stormy eyes as he looked down at you, his hand tangled in the strands of your hair as he pulled you back and forth on his cock, feeling his thick length bulge out in your throat while you were helpless to do nothing more than take it. "You see this, men?" Pierro then boldly addressed his recruits just as spit bubbles started to pop up at the corners of your mouth. Your eyes threatened to roll to the back of your head, the fact that you weren't allowed to pleasure of yourself nearly driving you insane in combination with the shame of having so many people watch your husband slut you out. "This is my wife. No matter how much she tries to whore herself out to you—" You gagged when his pace became more ruthless, your hands flying to try and stabilize yourself against his thighs.

"—she isn't to be touched. Unless...you want to end up like them." You weren't able to see what everyone had turned their eyes towards but...you were going to go ahead and assume that it was quite the sight. Your husband was possessive, if you were touched, the people who did so always mysteriously ended up missing the next day, the poor fellows!

But, you didn't have too much brain power to think about that at the moment. "Good fucking slut...all you're good for is being a brainless cock sleeve, eh?" Pierro groaned, out of breath as he then started to suck in his bottom lip, his thighs flexing as a sign of his approaching climax. He pushed his hips flush against your face, nearly blocking off your only remaining air source before he smirked at your tear-stained face. Your cheeks were beet red and your eyes wider than a doe's, he could almost see the hearts within' your pupils.

This was supposed to be a punishment not a reward.

"Tch, you're enjoying this aren't you, wife?" He hummed, his eyes beginning to flutter as he groaned at the way your throat squeezed around him. You moaned around him as he began to gently pat your head, immediately trying to press yourself closer to him like a dog who was enjoying attention from its owner. Your visible devotion to him made his cock twitch in your throat, his hand then moving to gently grip your head again before he resumed pulling you up and down his length, starting off at a steady pace before slowly increasing until he quietly cursed under his breath when he pushed you against his pelvis, his hairs tickling your face as you felt ropes of his cum shoot down your throat.

You stayed there for a couple of minutes until you were forced off his cock.

Once you took a few breaths, you had no sense of shame when you asked your next question— "...Do I get another reward, honey?" You giggled dumbly before you hitched up your dress, just enough for your husband to see the mess that was between your thighs. He was frozen for a beat or two before he smirked, he supposed the recruits wouldn't mind another show of witnessing who you belonged to.

[roseykat]

TITLE: Play Right

SUMMARY: The aftermath of the events that occurred at Hyunjin's apartment begins to unravel and sprout into things that are unsuspecting of Hyunjin and Jisung. While Jisung is under the disturbance of a text message he sent to Chan from your phone, he decides to turn to his friends to spill the beans.

TAGS: porn with plot, solo male masturbation, ruined orgasm, swearing, handjobs, soft moments, depictions of sexual intercourse, kissing, cum eating, orgasms, mainly m x m themes, alcohol is consumed (but nobody is drunk)

WARNING: minors DNI with this post or my blog. I create NSWF SKZ related content and I know I won’t be able to regulate/monitor every single potential interaction with those posts so please do not engage with my work or page whatsoever.

PART 1 + PART 2 - MASTERLIST

🏷️LIST: @chillichillicrabcrab23 @broken-glowsticks @ihatemen55 @boi-bi-ahaha @galamxy @weareapackofstrays @anglerfishiey @elizalabs3 @fr34k4c1dr41n @stayconnecteed @imnotjjini0325 @twinklix @meilix @livsposts @dawn-iscozy @princejisung @groovygroovyhyunjin @valibals @oiikaro @/itsthatbri @leftkittenface @/20minsat180degrees (if you want to be removed from the taglist going forward with this series, lmk!)

A/N: listened to Cigarettes out the window by TV Girl when I wrote most of this.

DISCLAIMER: before you read, this is a series so things are building up. There is a plot, so whilst this isn’t reader x member heavy based as the rest of the parts so far, that doesn’t mean to say that it won’t be in the future. Reader and Chan will get their time, don't worry, just want things to develop. This piece is more Jisung and Hyunjin focused iykwim x 

-

“The weather forecast for the upcoming week is predicted to be hotter than usual-“

“Ngh- fuck, right there...”

“-with temperatures expected to rise above thirty degrees. Weather Watch is also alerting citizens-“

“S-So good, baby…Y/N…”

“-in the city to prepare for the possibility of yet another monsoon-“

“Gonna…cum, gonna cum so hard for you…just like that…”

“-other regions of the outer city should also expect showers and hot temperatures-“ 

“Fuck’s sake!” 

With an angry groan and grumble, Hyunjin’s right hand stills over his slick, hard cock. His other hand yanks a pillow from his side and pelts it straight at his door to slam it right shut. Pathetic white strings of cum shot from his dark pink tip and land on his abdomen, some as far as his shirt that he had pulled up to his chest to avoid staining it. 

It’s been impossible for him to jerk off while the six o’clock weather is playing in the background from his lounge. The talk of monsoons and hot weather threatens the disappearance of the mental images he has of you in his brain, used as vital motivation to get himself off - a recurring activity that has been happening for the past two weeks. 

Summer doesn’t make it any better either. His body is sticky, sweat beading over his forehead from the disgusting, muggy heat that rivals the air con blowing throughout his apartment. Then the rain that lashes harshly at his windows is enough to drown out his own moans. It was a useless feat, just as useless as his own ruined orgasm that now put him in a bad mood. He had to satisfy his needs somehow. 

Instead of turning to porn, Hyunjin had something even better; you. The vivid images of his cock plunging fluidly into your wet pussy. The erotic sounds he extracted out of you with each thrust, that is when you weren’t choking on Jisung’s dick. He just wishes he could’ve seen your face when he made you cum.

Hyunjin sighs and presses his head back into the pillow. Before he gets to think about jumping in the shower, his phone rings from the nightstand. He picks up the device to see a very flattering drunk photo of Changbin appear on his screen. 

Hyunjin answers, “hey.” 

“Hyunjin, what are you doing right now?” Changbin asks.

“Watching the news,” he sniffs, he might as well have been watching the news.

“Boring. Did you not see the group chat messages?” 

“No, not yet. Why is something wrong?” 

“No, nothings wrong. Minho booked a table for hot pot and barbecue tonight. Figured you weren’t doing anything important so we’re all meeting up in half an hour,” Changbin explains. 

Barbecue and hot pot sounded nice. Surely it’ll be a method to dry out Hyunjin’s damp mood a little bit. That and a cold shower to freshen up. 

“Okay, yeah sounds good. Can you text me the details then?” 

As Hyunjin hung up and decided to start getting ready, it dawned on him that he hadn’t seen his friends in a couple of weeks, with a strong reference to you and Jisung. You had both been active in the group chat so he didn’t necessarily feel awkward about seeing the guy he had a threesome with. As for you, he really doesn’t know. 

You’re sweeter and easy to be around. Something about that just turns the entire situation on its head. Not that Jisung isn’t sweet or easy to be around in Hyunjin’s opinion, with you it’s different. Although, as he’s been mulling over the past couple of weeks, he’s discovered a few things about himself and Jisung. 

Dressing according to the weather, Hyunjin takes his umbrella with him on his way out in the hopes the rain won’t continue when he leaves the restaurant later on. After receiving the address from Changbin, thankfully just one subway stop away, Hyunjin heads off into the downfall and arrives fifteen minutes later. 

He was wrong to assume that he wasn’t going to feel awkward around Jisung, and now as he spots him at the table, engaging in a riveting conversation with Jeongin, all he feels is awkwardness. He waves out to him from down the way, ushering him to come over, lulling Hyunjin out of his own mind for a minute. 

“Hyunjin!” Jeongin called out cheerily, patting a spot beside him to come and sit. 

“Already started drinking Innie?” Hyunjin slings his arm around his younger friend's shoulder. 

“I couldn’t wait, sorry,” he responds and pours Hyunjin a shot of his soju. “Long day.” 

“Did you eat before?” 

“Not since lunch,” he replies. 

Hyunjin shakes his head and warns, “Innie, you know it’s bad to drink on an empty stomach, right?” 

Jeongin shrugs, “like I said, long day.” 

Hyunjin picks up his shot glass, downing it in one go before setting the glass back down on the surface again. As he does, his eyes meet Jisung’s who stares intently at him from across the table. He shoots a cheeky wink at Hyunjin, forcing a deep red blush to emerge through his cheeks.

Hyunjin knew what that meant. 

Suddenly his mind races back to that night at his apartment; making out with Jisung, remembering suddenly the thought of what sort of tricks that mouth of his possesses, watching you suck him dry. He wasn’t going to be forgetting it any time soon, not when it fuels his jack off sessions at home. 

After the few lingering moments where the pair were still locking eyes, more of their friends started to show up. Seungmin was accompanied by his new girlfriend, glued to his hip who greeted everyone shyly. Hyunjin hadn’t actually properly met her, let alone talked to her yet, but she seemed nice. Once they had taken a seat on their cushions, Changbin rolled in with Felix and Minho in tow who was stuffing his keys into the pocket of his pants. 

“You guys are here early,” he says with surprise. 

“You were the one who organised it,” Jisung pointed out. 

“That I did,” Minho nods, sitting down with everyone else. 

Felix groans as he flops next to Changbin, “I’m hungry, it's not even funny.”

As everyone settled down, trays of fresh veggies, assortments of meat, and other items were brought to their table for them to cook. Minho decided to get started on grilling while Seungmin opted to bring the hot pot on the table to a boil. The smell of the food made Hyunjin almost forget why he was slightly nervous about going out in the first place.

He got back to talking with Jeongin, asking him how work has been treating him, what he’s been up to since they last saw each other, and even planned a time to hang out in the future. 

“What about you, Jisung?” Jeongin asks with a mouthful of bossam. “Haven’t seen you in ages. Been up to anything interesting these days?” 

Jisung finishes slurping up some of the rice noodles Felix had cooked for him from the hot pot, “here and there. Mainly just working now.”

“Ah,” Jeongin nods in understanding. “You always work so much. No wonder why it’s hard for you to hang out with us sometimes.” 

That’s when it hits Jisung, causing him to pause and realise that something isn’t right. He can’t believe it’s taken him this long to realise it when it’s right there in plain sight.

“Where is Y/N and Chan?” He questions.

“Mm! Gonna…gonna cum all over your cock, wanna cum for you so bad,” you strain out. “Makes me feel so fucking good.”

Chan looks up at you, a deranged and desperate expression paints his face as you ride his dick, “don’t stop riding me then. Need to see that pretty pussy cum all over me.” 

Minho flips over pieces of meat on the grill, “Chan is out of the city with his family at the moment. They flew in a few days ago.” 

“You’re creaming so much around me baby,” Chan growls, nails digging painfully into the skin over your hips. “This pussy is all mine.” 

“And Y/N’s still at work,” Minho continues, plating some of the veggies he had been charring on the side too.

Moans erupt from your chest, projecting out into Chan’s lounge, “C-Channie, so good, make me cum, please-“

Jisung nods. It’s not suspicious at all to him that neither of you are here. The two people to an unwanted jigsaw puzzle that he had been piecing together just so happened to be ‘missing.’ Of course, none of the other guys truly knew why. At least he doesn’t think. 

Maybe you two really are in separate locations - not that he believes it. The one thing he knows for absolute sure to be the cold, hard truth, is that you and Chan are most definitely seeing each other casually - fucking behind everyone’s backs. Then again, so did he and Hyunjin in some sense.

Nonetheless, for the past couple of weeks, Jisung was storing that message he received on your phone from Chan in the back of his mind. It affirms a glimmer of a suspicion that Jisung held about Chan previously; that he was seeing someone. 

“Well, that just confirms everything then,” Jisung mutters under his breath, concluding his answer there and then in his mind. 

“Confirms what?” Minho questions, his hawk grade hearing picking up on his undertone. 

“Nothing, just a theory that I have,” he says smartly. “I was just thinking about it and...” 

“And what?” Minho presses.

“And whether I should be sharing it or not,” he replies, unsure of his own answer. 

“Well you have to now since you brought it up,” Felix exclaims. 

“It’s nothing,” Jisung brushes it off, making everyone at the table wonder what the hell he’s on about. 

“Nah, it has to be something,” Seungmin shakes his head and begins wondering what it is. “If it wasn’t important, he’d just say it. But he’s not.”

Is it even Jisung’s place to tell everyone? No. Should he still do it? No. But that’s what friends do. They talk and speculate about who they think are the perfect matches in the group or who out of everyone would marry if they had no other option. Topics as such.

In this case, it’s whether you and Chan are sleeping together or not, which Jisung already has the answer to. Whether he decides to tell the truth would just be speculation to the others since they never saw what Jisung did. They can decide to believe it or not.

However, does he trust his friends with the truth and to not say anything? Without a shadow of a doubt. So with that sliver of comfort in his mind that makes him think he’s not doing the wrong thing, Jisung chooses to divulge. 

“Y/N and Chan are fucking.”

Everyone’s heads at the table fixes onto Jisung. Not a single mouth moved out of surprise as the silence threads its way around. It makes him feel terribly awkward.

This is news to everyone, particularly to the person sitting opposite him; Hyunjin. Someone who, upon hearing what just came out of Jisung’s mouth, didn’t believe it for a second - did not want to believe it.

“You’re lying,” Seungmin accuses immediately from the other end of the table. 

“That’s your theory?” Changbin questions. “That Chan and Y/N are together?”

“Not together, together,” Jisung makes haste to correct him. “I just have reason to believe that they’re seeing each other casually is all.”

“I don’t believe you,” Seungmin responds, letting his strong opinion be known. “What is that reason anyway?”

“I swear on everyone I know, I saw a text message proving it on her phone,” Jisung mentions before his blood starts running cold. He almost gave away more than he should’ve.

Without context of the night in question, none of them know. Not even Hyunjin, who was a third party to it all, didn’t exactly know. He can only guess if what Jisung is referring to is the dirty text message that was sent off of your phone to Chan during the game of truth or dad. Then again, it’s not a thought that he even remotely considers when his mind has been stuck on the fact that you and Chan are potentially hooking up. 

“What the hell are you going through her phone for?” Felix asks defensively. 

“Yeah, that’s not okay,” Jeongin adds. 

“N-No! I wasn’t going through her phone, I just…saw them, by accident,” he responds out of desperation. 

He doesn’t want to disclose that night to his friends. Sure they’re all mates and share everything with each other, but that’s just Jisung. Hyunjin keeps aspects of his life relatively private and Jisung is sure that you wouldn’t appreciate him going around telling everyone what happened. But at that thought, he starts second guessing himself and what he just did. If he thinks you wouldn’t be okay with him sharing information about that night, how is it any different from him saying the same thing about you and Chan? 

It doesn’t take long for Jisung to feel regret and guilt for ever bringing it up. 

“Even if they are, who cares? Good for them, and if they start going out - even better. Y/N’s a massive upgrade from that chick he was seeing before,” Minho explains. 

“That’s probably why they’re messing around,” Felix theorises. 

“I still don’t reckon they are,” Seungmin puts in his opinion again. 

“Why?” Felix asks. 

“I just don’t see it,” he shrugs. “Chan seems like the type of person who wouldn’t sleep around because he only wants to be with someone that he really, really likes.” 

Those words do not sit well with Hyunjin. 

“And Chan told you that himself, did he?” Minho snickers. “If that’s your reasoning, then it sounds like they’re already going out.” 

Hyunjin and Jisung’s eyes immediately lock onto each other in horror. 

“I don’t know if you heard the word ‘seems’ in my sentence, implying that I’m only guessing but okay,” Seungmin bites back, earning him a finger flick to his arm by Jeongin for talking back like that to their older friend. 

“Ten bucks that they are,” Minho says on a different topic. “Ten bucks that they aren’t,” Seungmin counters. 

“A-Are you saying that none of you believe me?” Jisung whines. 

“We’re saying that we don’t have enough evidence – any of us, not just you since you bought up the topic,” Minho replies. 

“What about tonight? Neither of them are here, where do you think they might be?” Jisung attempts to raise a good point, but Changbin spots the obvious loopholes. 

“We already told you. Chan isn’t even in the city since he’s spending time with his family, and Y/N’s still at work,” he answers. “And we know that because Chan messaged the group chat to tell us that he wasn’t going to be coming to dinner and we know Y/N doesn’t finish until six thirty.”

“They could be lying,” Jeongin conspires. 

“That’s only for tonight though. I know he’s been acting shady lately so I reckon he is,” Felix announces. 

“Hyunjin?” Changbin pokes him in the arm, trying to prod an answer out of him. 

He responds quietly but honestly, “I-I don’t think they are.” 

“That settles it then,” Minho begins instigating once more. “Two of you bet that they aren’t and the rest of us bet that they are.”

“We are not betting on our friends right now,” Jisung tries to calm the masses. 

“Mm! How about losers have to pay for a day of food when we go to Jeju?” Jeongin suggests. 

The majority of the table begins to erupt in agreement, making it impossible for Jisung to rewrite something he just initiated. Everyone immediately starts talking details about what food they would request if they won the bet, then would eventually return to the topic of you and Chan. 

Hyunjin didn’t really want to hear another word of it. Instead, he pours himself another shot of Jeongin’s soju in the hopes his thoughts about the situation start to melt. Until he gets to that stage, it’s easy for him to wallow in his feelings. A selfish part of him wants whatever connection there is between you and Chan to falter to the point of no return. Then the other half scolds his mind for wishing such a misfortune on his friend.

But nobody knew. Nobody knew that Hyunjin had feelings for you nor did he want anyone to know. He’d rather die than tell someone he likes them for fear that they won’t like him the way he does. It’s almost like he’s saving himself from the pain and hopes that it’ll pass. However, there was also ‘instigator number two’ sitting across from him who had been making regular appearances in his brain since that night. Hyunjin doesn’t know what it means, if it even means anything for that matter.

So by the end of the dinner, everyone had their bets placed. 

The whole lot of them lingered outside the restaurant after some filling meals as some of the others waited for their rides back home. All aside from Felix and Jeongin who decided to go bar hopping for more drinks. Changbin and Seungmin were laughing away at something they were discussing while Minho was chatting to his friend's new girlfriend. Hyunjin on the other hand stood away from them, up against the wall of the building as he scrolls aimlessly on his phone. 

“Hey,” says Jisung, emerging from the restaurant. 

Hyunjin turns to his friend, realising it’s the first time they’ve directly spoken to each other in a while, “hi.” 

“You know it feels like I haven’t seen you since-“

“That’s because you haven’t, Jisung,” he cuts him off sharply, having already foreseen what Jisung was about to say after the word ‘since.’ 

He smiles sheepishly, “right. So, what are your plans now?”

Hyunjin doesn’t think and shrugs, “gonna go home, paint, watch TV or something.”

“Cool. I’m coming with you.” 

Hyunjin didn’t have any say in the matter. Jisung was going to follow him home like his own shadow whether he liked it or not. It dismissed Hyunjin from grovelling in his feelings and mind after hearing the situation between you and Chan. One half of his heart yearned to cry while the other wanted to punch Chan in the ribs. He doesn’t know. He’s conflicted. But they are aspects that remain undetected to Jisung as they sat next to each other quietly on the subway back to his home. 

The pair walked under Hyunjin’s umbrella for a few hundred metres until they were under the shelter of the apartment complex. He doesn’t mind accommodating people at his place since he spends the majority of his time in voluntary solitude. It allows him to fully recuperate from social settings in order to go out again. This time, with less company, it’s still equally welcoming. So after Hyunjin unlocks his front door for both of them enter, take off their shoes, and store them neatly. 

“Ah~” Jisung sighs with relief, stretching out his arms and stands right underneath a device mounted to the top of the wall. “Air con!” 

“Don’t you have one? I thought you did,” Hyunjin mistakenly thought. 

“It broke,” he mumbles, revelling in the cold artificial breeze. “Been waiting three weeks for it to be fixed.” 

Hyunjin doesn’t say anything after that. He lets Jisung do whatever he wants while he heads into his room to change from his clothes to a black tank top and a pair of shorts. In his spare room that he’s been slowly transitioning to an art space, he goes in and collects some of his unfinished art, paints, and brushes. After, he returns to the lounge, he sets everything down on the coffee table and pulls up some floor cushions for him and Jisung to sit on. 

“Oh, tangerines,” he suddenly remembers as his eyes clock onto the silver fruit bowl on his kitchen counter while Jisung takes his jacket off and hangs it up. 

“Tangerines? In summer?” Jisung asks as he goes to sit down. 

Hyunjin places the bowl of the fruit between him and his friend as he lowers down too, “why not? I got them fresh from the market the other day.”

“I can only eat them in the winter.”

“Alright then,” Hyunjin shrugs and starts peeling one for himself as Jisung reaches for the remote and turns on the TV. 

For a while, they sit together. Hyunjin switches between picking up his paintbrush and pieces of fruit whereas Jisung’s eyes are glued to some hot drama playing across the screen. It’s nice to just be in the same room with someone and to not have a full on conversation that ends up being draining on their social batteries. Both of them are the perfect introverts for thriving in those types of environments. A peaceful comfort.

Time seems to pass in their space as Jisung nears the end of the episode and Hyunjin is rounding off one area of his painting. By that time, Hyunjin had eaten five tangerines then opted to bring some more. He offered to Jisung if he wanted something else to eat or drink, but the man was so hooked on this drama that he didn't even hear Hyunjin ask.

He found it…slightly…endearing. Just a bit. But then he went back to his work and all was forgotten until Jisung finally started speaking again.

“Hyunjin,” he starts in a low voice, still staring at the screen. 

“Hmm?” 

“Are we gonna talk about the other night?” Jisung mentions.

His hand freezes over his canvas, a small dollop of paint drips from the end of his brush and onto his work. Hyunjin wasn’t exactly expecting to hear that question, yet at the same time, he should’ve seen it coming. 

“W-What about it?” He responds awkwardly. 

Jisung leans back, both of his hands propping him up from behind as he looks up to the ceiling, “the fact that we kissed, well… made out mainly.” 

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said, unsure of what to actually ask him here. “Do you…regret it?”

“No! No way!” Jisung exclaims rather quickly before he calms down. “No, I don’t. In fact…it was…actually really good.” 

In the back of Hyunjin’s mind, he can almost predict what’s about to happen. Jisung wouldn’t have brought up the subject unless it was really affecting him - unless he was dying to get it off his chest. Otherwise he would’ve let it simmer down, but taking into account that it had been two weeks and he wants to unpack everything, there was clearly something irking him in a way that only Hyunjin seems to understand. 

“You looked…good that night,” he adds then corrects himself. “You do look good.” 

Hyunjin peers up from his work. What’s he supposed to say to that? Is he supposed to divulge the fact that he thinks the same of Jisung? He doesn’t even know entirely what he feels, having just accepted that he slept with his two friends and sort of went on with life.

“What did you follow me back to my apartment for?” Hyunjin gets straight to the point. 

His friend sits back up and looks him dead in the eye, “let’s just say I didn’t follow you back to eat some fruit and watch TV.”

“Then what?” Hyunjin urges impatiently even though his and Jisung’s faces slowly draw towards each other.

Jisung’s eyes drop down to Hyunjin’s lips, and says in a quiet voice, “because I wanted to kiss you again.” 

Hyunjin doesn’t know when, but it happened. One second he had his gaze set on Jisung’s soft expression and the next his eyes were closed, allowing his brain to focus on what’s physically happening. Their lips meet for the second time since the first, this time a little slower and tender.

As the TV plays in the background, all the two of them can hear is the sound of their mouths moving - breaking apart for a couple of moments even though their noses still touch, tilting their heads in different directions to see what’s the better angle. 

The sweet, citrine aftertaste of tangerine lingers in Hyunjin’s mouth, a pleasure to savour when Jisung is able to explore it with his tongue. In Hyunjin’s left hand, the paintbrush slips from his grip, its tip smearing more paint onto his work. But there is a great distance between him and being bothered about it. He worries more about the reaction, that after minutes of kissing, stirs in his pants when Jisung’s hand finds its way onto his lap, barely caressing his thigh. His cock has started filling out. 

He doesn’t notice it until slowly yet surely, Jisung’s hand inches closer to the ever growing, obvious bulge in his friend's shorts. The second he makes contact with Hyunjin’s clothed dick, a moan shoots through from his mouth and into Jisung’s. He pulls away for a second, staring at his lips.  

“You really are a good kisser,” Jisung breathes. 

“Jisung…” Hyunjin struggles, his forehead comes to rest against Jisung’s as he stares down at his hand. It palms slowly, agonisingly slow. 

“You’re so hard for-“

He cups Jisung’s mouth before he can complete the rest of his sentence, “shut up, I know,” he cuts him off bitterly. 

A chuckle reverberates through his hand as Jisung takes it away but decides to continue holding it, “let me help you then.” 

It’s not difficult for him to read the room. He knows what Hyunjin wants and how obvious it is that he needs it. His cock silently screams for touch, to be relieved. So at the perfect moment, Jisung reaches into Hyunjin’s shorts and past his boxes.

A quiet hiss issues from his mouth when the entire length of his dick is free from restriction. His cock is beautiful. Jisung never managed to get a good look at it since it was either in your mouth or drilling your pussy from behind.

Jisung licks his way into Hyunjin’s mouth, his tongue dancing across his plush bottom lip before he breaks away for a moment. Excitement surges through him now that he finally gets to feel what he’s been wanting to since that night two weeks ago. He stares down at Hyunjin’s cock, pre-cum beads at the tip, some had already leaked down his length.

For Jisung to have him so aroused, so desperate for touch, proves the effect his friend has on him that he suspected was present. Hyunjin had an inkling of it when you all slept together, but nothing other than that. A pang of realisation maybe, that his friend was attractive and alluring in a sense, and it was obvious that Jisung felt the same. 

He takes a soft hold of the top of Hyunjin’s cock, the pad of his index finger swiping over his tip and pulling away. He watches the thick string of glimmering pre-cum connect him and Hyunjin, forcing a wave of embarrassment to come crushing over him. It wasn’t embarrassing to Jisung. It was hot. So fucking hot.

Seeing the impact of his own actions on Hyunjin’s body gave him a sense of power so to speak. It made him want to see more as he started tugging gently at his dick. He trusted that Hyunjin’s pre-cum would act almost as a lube, and sure enough with more strokes, his cock was sticky with it. Nothing but slick sounds and tiny, barely there whimpers from Hyunjin’s mouth fill his lounge, drowning out the next episode of the drama that was still playing. 

“Mm…it…mmm.” 

“Don’t be shy Hyunjinnie,” Jisung prompts him to become more vocal, to express what he’s feeling however he wants. “We’re friends, since when have you ever been quiet around me?” 

Hyunjin replies breathlessly, “friends…d-don’t get each other off.”

“Hey, you haven’t gotten me off yet,” Jisung reminds him. 

Yet. 

In his mind that starts to slip through his fingers like sand, Hyunjin was no longer able to tell if that was an empty possibility or a very real chance of it happening. For the time being, he chooses to focus on pleasure. The satisfaction of having something wrapped around his cock to relieve him, and the divine pressure that begins to store at the base of his cock from Jisung’s long strokes. 

“Feel good?” He asks. 

The question alone is enough to make Hyunjin lower his head and close his eyes, too shy to meet Jisung’s ardent gaze. Instead, he gives an affirming nod. 

“Good,” Jisung mumbles quietly, then finds Hyunjin’s lips once more with his own to kiss him.

God he can’t stop kissing him. 

The way they melt into each other is almost like they’ve done this a hundred times prior. Jisung tugs and strokes Hyunjin’s length so attentively, greedily drawing out every single reaction he can possibly get. The hushed moans that transmit from his mouth as Jisung’s tongue moves lazily to explore. Very abruptly however, Hyunjin breaks away from the kiss. 

“G-Gonna make me cum,” he swallows hard. 

Jisung’s eyes nearly roll into the back of his head just hearing that. To him, those words are not only a specific type of praise or reward, but it’s coupled with the way that Hyunjin sounds right in his ear. His tense, high pitched whimpers become more frequent and stressed as Jisung has been building him up to the height of his orgasm.

“Cum for me then,” Jisung whispers to him.

Suddenly, the air snags inside Hyunjin’s throat. His head drops and all the attention gravitates towards his cock, shivering as he starts to orgasm.

“Ngh - ‘sung…cumming,” he strains out, breathing deeply but staggered. 

Jisung catches his seed in the cupped palm of his hand as he manages to stroke the tip of his length at the same time. He looked so beautiful when his mind and body writhe under his touch. Hyunjin’s moans complete the satisfaction Jisung feels to have unravelled his best friend like that. To see ribbons of his white warm cum in hand makes him struggle against the unhinged part of his brain that needs to taste it for himself. He can’t help it when the base of his palm reaches his mouth-

But it doesn’t stop Hyunjin’s face from twisting and screwing into an expression of revolt. 

“Jisung,” he says with a tone of warning. 

He hastily tucks himself back into his clothes, springs up from the coffee table and heads to the kitchen to grab a paper towel. After soaking it a little bit in some warm water from under the tap, he returns to Jisung and cleans his hand. Hyunjin didn’t want to make a note of the fact that most of Jisung’s palm was covered in cum and when he returned, it was almost like it was never there. Still, he did him the decency of helping clean him up. 

“Maybe wash your hand too,” he suggests with a concerned look still clouding his face. 

“Don’t look so offended, Hyunjin,” Jisung chuckles airly. “You taste good.” 

“Shut up, please,” is all he can come back with, then looks up to not only see that cocky, arrogant grin of Jisung’s but to also notice that there’s still a trace of his cum smeared a little bit on his bottom lip. Hyunjin reaches towards his friend’s face, thumbing the excess away.  

“Don’t waste anything,” Jisung scolds him.  

“Alright,” he rolls his eyes, done with the mortifying humiliation and stands up again to return to the kitchen with the dirty paper towel to chuck it away. 

“Wait, come back! Kiss me one more time and I swear I’ll stop embarrassing you!” he calls out to him.

Hyunjin stops listening to Jisung and all the whiny complaints he propels from the coffee table. Instead, something else suddenly occupies his attention. The one thing that threatens to unbalance his mood once more. 

“Jisung,” Hyunjin says. “Is it true? About Y/N and Chan?”

“Huh?” He answers, “Oh, yeah. It is.” 

Hyunjin’s gaze falls to the floor. That answers that then. 

Jisung then continues, “I didn’t want to mention how I saw the message though. If I did, it might’ve put you and Y/N in the spotlight about that night we had when you probably didn’t want to. Plus, they’re like jackals. They would’ve torn you to shreds just to get an answer.” 

Hyunjin nods, appreciative of his friend's move, “thanks. But should you have told them about Y/N and Chan anyway?”

Jisung did realise at one stage that he told their friends about you and Chan, but didn’t apply that same energy towards bringing up himself, you, and Hyunjin. There wasn’t that much of a difference when he looks at it now since he’s also messed around with you both, similar to the way Chan is currently messing around with you.

But Jisung knows for a fact that he didn’t bring it up because he wanted to save his own skin or divert any suspicion or attention away from himself. It was just so scandalous to find out that the two least suspecting people on his radar of who in the group would be fucking, is you and Chan. 

“They said they weren’t going to say anything,” Jisung responds. “I trust them that much, not that I should be making a big deal about it, but I want to go see Chan. I know that they’re not, but I want to make sure that they aren’t actually dating, otherwise-“

“We’d have to tell him,” says Hyunjin.

“Exactly,” Jisung agrees. “Again, I don’t think that’s the case. Chan said so himself that he’s done with dating and relationships, and I trust that wholeheartedly too.”

Hyunjin gives a nod and decides to hold out onto hope. Hope that you’re not seeing him and that it’s just something that turns out to be a stupid rumour. In the meantime, he needs to figure out his feelings. 

Too tired to make the commute back to his own place, Jisung ended up staying the night at Hyunjin’s. He could’ve well and truly slept on the couch but for what it was worth, he was invited to sleep in Hyunjin’s bed. It’s not like they’ve never slept next to each other. But for some reason, it means something a bit more. Something hazy that exists in a twilight zone that Hyunjin only hopes clears up so he can decipher what he feels towards Jisung. 

The thought floats around in his mind before he drifts off, sleeping comfortably, only to wake up the next morning tangled in each other’s arms.

Neither of them were bothered about it. 

[imagine-darksiders]

Cold Hands, Warm Heart - chapter 24.

The Champion.

“My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.”

― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

Words; 20,144.

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You’re no stranger to rude awakenings.

You seem to have suffered a plethora of them in the week following your unexpected departure from Earth.

But this morning in particular, the event that pulls you from your healing slumber amongst Draven’s moth-eaten sheets is not so much rude as it is downright malicious.

The world around you – once so peaceful and quiet and dark enough to keep you in unconscious bliss – is suddenly shaken up by a deafening crash that sends you lurching upright with a yelp, scrabbling for purchase on the bed as a veritable earthquake rocks through the Eternal Throne.

“Wha-th’ hell!?” you slur blearily, wrenched from sleep so swiftly that your brain has to take a moment to catch up with your body. Somewhere overhead, an indignant squawk answers your rhetorical question.

For several, disorienting seconds, your eyes rattle around inside their sockets, and you frantically try to work out whether it’s just you vibrating or the entire room.

And then, as if the world has hit its collective brakes, everything pitches sideways – yourself included – causing the bed to skid a few inches away from the wall, and the hanging lantern overhead to swing wildly up and slam into the ceiling with an almighty racket, raining dust and woodchips down on your head.

Sadly, you aren’t spared a blow. The jarring halt tosses you right off the mattress and onto the floor, your teeth bouncing against each other with an audible ‘clack’ when you collide with the wooden boards.

“Oof!” you exclaim, landing on your spine violently enough that the air is punched out of your lungs.

Blinking stupidly, you gape up at the juddering ceiling whilst the lantern continues to ricochet from side to side, threatening to pull itself free of its iron fixtures.

At last, just as your stomach clenches like it’s about to purge the meal Draven had so thoughtfully provided, the walls around you start to stabilise, the quakes peter out, and the world grows still once more, save for a squawking, ebony barrage of feathers zooming about over your head.

Once your vision steadies enough to see straight again, you realise that it’s merely Dust flapping in mad circles around the confines of Draven’s quarters.

Paralysed on the floor in a state of shock, you can manage little else but to gawk up at the crow as your chest rises and falls in quick succession until finally, you manage to swallow the heart wedged in your throat and wheeze out an anxious, reedy, “What the Hell was that?”

It’s a question that, for the most part, was meant to go unanswered, a by-product of sleepiness and a befuddled mind attempting to comprehend a reality it has just freshly awoken to, but regardless, you don’t have long to wait before receiving a tangible answer.

A pitch-dark shadow suddenly looms above your head, blotting out the lantern’s sickly glow with a curtain of thick, black hair that frames a contrarily pale mask.

“That-“ comes the gravelly voice of its wearer “- was our scheduled arrival.”

The shape moves, and through the gloom, you can make out a large hand reaching down towards you.

For a moment, your body goes tense, only to fall slack again once the comfortingly familiar sensation of cool, calloused fingers slips around your bicep, hauling you effortlessly to your unsteady feet.

It’s only Death.

… A few weeks ago, saying ‘it’s only Death’ might have garnered you some concerned looks from your peers.

Now, however, you’ve had time to come to terms with the fact that there are far worse things to wake up to than an ornery Horseman with a daunting name.

The soles of your boots have barely touched the ground before his hands are pivoting you by the shoulders until you’re facing the door, where he removes his appendages from your arms in favour of nudging his bony knuckles into the small of your back, prodding you forwards.

“A-arrived?” you stammer, parting your jaws to let out a wide, obnoxious yawn, “Where?”

“The Arena, no doubt” he offers, as concise an explanation as you’re liable to get this early in the morning. Then, raising his voice, he snaps, “Dust! Will you calm down.”

The volume sends a little jolt through your heart.

Somewhere above you, a thoroughly offended crow lets out a caw that sounds more like a huff, but after a moment, he swoops down to land on Death’s shoulder, his feathers ruffled and unkempt.

Again, you blink hard, clearing away some of the sleepy residue gathered at the corners of your eyes. As soon as the Horseman’s prior words register, the events of yesterday swing around to hit you like a punch to the gut.

“Oh, god,” you groan, lifting an arm and scrubbing the back of it across your weary eyes, “S’morning already?”

“Mm, at least the Chancellor is punctual,” Death grumbles as he guides you to a halt near the door.

Reaching past you, he lays his palm against the withered wood and shoves it open with a mere flex of his wrist.

Dimly, it starts to dawn on you just how urgently you’re being bundled from the room.

“Hey… Woah, hey!” Giving a sudden start, you dig your heels into the floorboards to try and slow the Horseman’s pace as he bullies you through the open door. Of course, your efforts are for naught.

You’re pushing back against the raw strength of a Nephilim, which isn’t unlike blowing bubbles at a hurricane and expecting the winds to change directions.

“Death, just – wait a moment,” you complain, exasperated, “What’s the rush?”

In response, the Horsemen only gives your spine a more direct push until you’re forced to stop dragging your feet and take a step forwards into the dingy corridor outside Draven’s quarters.

It’s only after the door behind you slams shut with a creak of rusty hinges that Death lowers his arm.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get a move on,” he tells you gruffly.

Clicking your tongue, you raise your brows at him as he stalks past you down the hall, a disgruntled crow still perched on his shoulder.

“I can see that,” you quip, falling lazily into step behind him, “Didn’t think you were this excited to fight the Champion.”  

“Excited’ is not the word I’d use,” he retorts smartly.

His tone, clipped and sharp like the blade of his scythe, is a stark contrast to the manner he’d graced you with last night.

And that’s when you’re struck by an unpleasant pinch of guilt. Perhaps Death wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get moving if he hadn’t been guarding you all night. He might have used the time productively, training for whatever he’s to face in the Arena.

The guilt, however, doesn’t weigh you down for long, given that Death immediately follows up with, “I’m keen to leave the vicinity lest your little devotee come sniffing about.”

“Devotee?” you echo, scrunching your face up distastefully at his tone, “You mean Draven?”

The Horseman’s hair bounces as he given an affirming nod, prompting you to tip your head towards the ceiling and heave out an exaggerated groan.

You might have guessed.

“Okay. What is your problem with him?” you huff, dropping your head again to aim a scolding look at the back of his skull, “He let us have his room? He brought me food!”

You don’t receive a response for several paces as Death veers to the right and leads you into yet another corridor, this one lined with many rickety, wooden doors. “No doubt sowing the seeds to call in a future favour,” he mutters darkly, eyeing one of the doors as it starts to creak open.

The scrape of wood goes unnoticed by his yawning tagalong.

“Why’s that such a bad thing?” you sigh, digging a pinkie finger into the corner of your eye and flicking out a kernel of sleep dust, “He helps us, we help him if he needs it. That’s how a lot of people make friends, you know.”

Death’s shoulders rise and fall with a disgruntled harrumph. “I’m not sure friendship is what the Blademaster has in mind.”

Ouch. Pulling a face, you open your mouth to ask him why - if Draven doesn’t want to be friends with you - would he have been so unequivocally accommodating to you? If Death knew how badly you'd missed the point, he might have tried to shake some sense into your clueless skull.

But at that moment, your attention is snatched away by movement in the corridor up ahead.

Swinging your gaze forwards, you suddenly falter, feet clumsily fumbling underneath you in some feeble attempt to trip each other up, and it’s only the fact that Death is still walking that you manage to keep yourself moving after him, the fear of being left behind outweighing your trepidation of the path in front of you. 

Two rows of doors stretching up and down the corridor have started to pivot open, filling the narrow space with creaks of wood that are accompanied another, less definable sound, something that reminds you of bones squeaking under too-tight sinew.

Chilly fingers dance across your spine when, from the gloom, several, emaciated figures prowl out into the corridor.

Far more awake now than you were seconds ago, you clutch at your elbows, bruising fingertips tightening on your bare arms as an unnatural cold envelopes you and raises all the hairs covering your body.

Undead – a startling number of them – begin to emerge from the open doors, shuffling out into the hallway ahead of you in a manner that reminds you all too starkly of a scene from some plotless horror movie. The difference here, of course, is that these aren’t actors wearing prosthetic makeup and fake blood. These are the real deal. Real people – perhaps not human – but people all the same who just so happen to have passed their expiry date.

Muttering to one another in deep, rasping tones, they seem to be in the throes of getting ready for the day ahead, fastening the clasps on their worn and rusted hauberks or stooping to pull boots over their exposed shinbones.

“Didn’t think we had a stop scheduled,” one of them grunts, too preoccupied with peeling a flap of loose skin from his shoulders to notice you slink past in Death’s all-encompassing shadow.

The undead beside him is equally distracted, using withered fingers to grasp his own jaw and tug it this way and that as if he’s trying to realign the bones.

A gruesome ‘crunch’ flips your stomach on its side.

The wheezing sigh that whistles out of him doesn’t quite make it to the undead’s mouth, but rather slips through a gaping hole torn out of his throat, exposing a rotten oesophagus, and when he speaks, his words are airy, like the wind given voice.

“Didn’t you hear?” he rasps, “Another Arena fight. Some fool wants to challenge Gnashor to gain audience with…. with…“

You’ve been staring hard at Death’s boots, sticking to the grim Horseman like glue, unwilling to lift your eyes and meet the hollow gaze of an unfamiliar undead. But as the soldier you pass fumbles over his words and trails off into silence, you can’t help but dart your eyes sideways towards him, catching a brief glimpse of his sunken sockets and the unhinged jaw that hangs open to an alarming degree. You’re amazed the strands of flesh connecting it to his skull are strong enough to keep it from falling to the dusty floorboards beneath your feet.

With his sudden silence – and the obvious, bug-eyed stare he’s caught you in – the other undead finally take notice.

Over a dozen heads, each in various stages of decay, creak around on disjointed necks to lock you in their sights. There’s an oppressive hush that falls over the corridor then, only disturbed by the shuffling of your footsteps.

You’d much prefer to think that Death is the cause for the impromptu silence.

Alas, despite a lack of any visible pupils, it isn’t difficult to tell whose movements the undead are tracking.

Swallowing audibly, you offer them the most feeble, fleeting smile as you debate saying 'good morning,' before thinking better of it and kicking up your heels to close the meagre distance between you and the Horsemen even more until you’re practically treading on the backs of his boots.

You remain entirely ignorant of the dark glares that Death is shooting at each soldier he passes, his hunched shoulders and luminous eyes all but broadcasting a wordless challenge.

He can understand the surprise of seeing a human in their midst, especially if word hasn’t yet spread around the whole ship. He’ll allow them a few, curious stares. But anything further…

Well… If a murderous glare from the Reaper doesn’t deter them, the scythes hanging from his hips might prove a more effective deterrent.

Unfortunately, he can do little to guard you from the whispers that have started to creep after you as you pass.

“Is that…?”

“That’s a human!”

“A maiden? In the Eternal Throne?”

Disgust, amazement, and contempt are prevalent among the tones he picks up on. The former and lattermost culprits receive a fierce eyeballing from Dust.

You’re only too pleased when you traipse around another corner and have the end of the corridor loom into view, with pale, green daylight spilling through the opening like a beacon calling you forth.

Casting a wary glance over your shoulder, you allow yourself a breath of relief when you don’t spot any of the undead trailing after you, though their murmuring voices still drift down the narrow corridor in your wake, jumbled together and indiscernible from one another now. The topic of conversation isn’t hard to guess at though.

“You’re causing quite the stir,” Death remarks, setting foot on the old, rickety staircase that winds down into the courtyard from the upper balustrade.

Mumbling something under your breath, you busy yourself with rubbing at your chilly arms in an effort to disperse the goosebumps from your flesh. “Yeah well, believe me, I’d much rather I wasn’t… Some of them looked like they wanted to mount my head on a wall.”

“I doubt they’d resort to that,” the Horseman returns conversationally, leaning sideways towards you and adding, “Your head wouldn’t make much of a trophy.”

“Oh, hardy-har.”

Jumping down the last step to land with a thud at the bottom, you hesitate for just a second, casting your surreptitious eye over an empty courtyard. Sadly, your search yields neither hide nor hair of your new, cadaverous friend, and you can’t help but purse your lips and slouch as Death herds you straight towards the door laying in wait at the foot of the main staircase.

Tipping your head back and stretching your jaw open into another yawn, you follow the Horseman down each step, your footfalls heavy and sluggish in comparison to his.

The morning air whistles through the fortress, cooling your brow and sweeping away the vestiges of exhaustion. Halfway down, the dishevelled blob of ebony feathers sitting on Death’s shoulder suddenly flicks his long, black beak up to the sky, spreads his enormous wingspan and takes off with a few, hearty flaps, buffeting the Horseman’s ear as he goes.

“Where’s he off to?” you muse aloud, tracing Dust’s erratic, vertical take-off until he catches an air current and straightens up, gliding elegantly over the top of the towers and out of sight.

The Horseman only grumbles something inaudible under his breath, though you’re almost certain you pick up on the word ‘mischief.’

At last, you reach the bottom of the stairs, and the large, looming doors set snugly into the wooden wall just up ahead. Absently, you note that this is the same entrance you’d come through yesterday. You’re so busy trying to suppress a second yawn that you don’t realise Death has come to an abrupt halt just a few feet from the doorway, and in your obliviousness, you waltz right past him, stretching out your arm to reach for the handles.

You’re promptly stopped in your tracks, however, by a large, pale hand flattening itself against your stomach and shoving you gracelessly to a standstill, pushing a strangled wheeze out of your lungs.

And not a moment too soon, it seems.

Without warning, the doors you’d been reaching for are unceremoniously flung open by a force from the other side.

You yelp as the rotten wood whizzes past your nose and barely misses by a few, scant inches.

Blinking widely – suddenly feeling much more alert – you swallow back the retort you were about to throw at the Horseman, instead offering him a grateful tilt of your lips before returning your attention to the figure emerging from the gloom of the dark hallway beyond.

A faded, green cloak is the first thing to catch your eye, and for a moment, you perk up, lifting your lips even further to aim a smile at –

… Oh.

“Hmph. Still here, are you…? Joy.”

With a shuffle of long, elegant robes, the shrouded silhouette steps over the threshold and out into the light, revealing a taller, slenderer figure than the one you’d been… expecting to see.

Embarrassed heat rushes up the back of your neck, chasing the wake of your eagerness as you shrink away from the Chancellor’s looming frame and blurt out a hasty, instinctive, “Oh-! uhm, good morning.”

As expected, Death offers no such greeting. Nor does the Chancellor for that matter, beyond making a derisive sound at the back of his decayed throat and slowing to a stop in the doorway, the ridge above one eye quirked down at you expectantly.

It takes you a second before you realise that you and the Horseman are standing side by side, taking up the entire width of the path at the base of the stairs.

“Whoops!” Giving a start, you sidle quickly behind Death, “Sorry. After you.”

You pretend you don’t hear the Horseman tut under his breath.

Sniffing haughtily, the Chancellor merely sticks his hollow nasal cavity into the air and saunters past Death, ignoring him entirely, but pausing long enough to sneer down at you with all the disgusted intrigue of a child poking at a dead bird.

“Do give my regards to the Champion, won’t you?” he says, curling his lips disparagingly, “It’s been so long since I’ve sent him a half decent meal.”

The strained, albeit polite smile that had been on your face recedes at once, shrivelling up at the implied threat, and the badly concealed insult.

Not exactly words of encouragement…

Audibly, you gulp, sending a troubled frown at the undead as his cruel grin stretches the hollows of his cheeks.

Standing as close as you are to the Horseman, you notice that the ever-present chill rolling off his skin suddenly grows colder. Moments later, just before you can think of a retort to the undead’s undeserved hostility, Death twists one of his arms behind you and lays a palm on the small of your back, ushering you around to his front and giving you a nudge through the open doors. All the while, he strains his neck over a shoulder to shoot a cool, unimpressed glare at the Chancellor.

Not another word is exchanged between any of you as Death steps through the doorway on your heels, making sure to turn his back on the undead with a dismissive scoff that earns him several, indignant splutters in return.

Then, using the heel of his boot, he kicks the stone door shut in the Chancellor’s scowling face.

As effective a snubbing as you’ve ever seen.

“Weaselly little sycophant,” Death grumbles, loudly enough that you’re sure he’s been heard even through the thick wood of the door.

“Death.” Admonishment is always more effective when you mean it. In this instance, your tone doesn’t carry nearly enough weight for the Horseman to believe you actually care about his affront on the Chancellor.

Shoulders twitching with a quiet scoff, he simply turns to lead the way through the long, murky corridor, his towering figure disappearing quickly into the gloom.

Casting a last, pensive look at the closed doors behind you, you heave a sigh and start after the Horseman, scrubbing a hand tiredly down the length of your face.

“Wait. Isn’t this the way we got in?” you ask, traipsing along in the wake of his loping strides.

In response, Death gives a noncommittal hum, likely reluctant to dredge up any relevance to the events of yesterday and his… less than dignified actions as the Reaper.

After several more seconds spent trailing through the corridor in silence, he comes to another stop, and you’re just a bit too slow to glance up from his boots to see the wall of pale flesh in front of you.

‘Thud!’

Funnily enough, it isn’t unlike walking into a wall either.

While you bounce straight off the Horseman’s back, you’re not surprised to find that he doesn’t budge an inch beyond sending you a mildly exasperated look over his shoulder.

“Sorry,” you offer, rubbing your nose with a grimace.

Now it’s his turn to heave a weary sigh.

Swivelling forwards once more, Death tilts the chin of his mask down and nods at something near his feet. “Mind the hole.”

Raising a brow, you start to edge around him, trying to get a glimpse of what’s ahead. “Mind the -? Ah.”

Stepping up to his flank, you follow the Horseman’s downturned gaze and immediately feel your stomach swoop.

The floor ahead of you has completely caved in under its own weight, leaving an enormous, yawning hole to span the width of the corridor. It’s round and bottomless, the wooden boards splintered around its circumference like a great maw filled with too many teeth.

Bravely shuffling your feet closer to the drop, you stretch your neck out and peer down over the jagged, dusty floorboards into the gaping chasm, gulping back a nervous hum. What meagre light exists in this corridor isn’t anywhere near strong enough to disturb the ink-black darkness that begins just a foot or so from the top of the hole.

“Is this… how we got in?” you ask, voice little more than a whisper.

Warm air rises gently out of the abyss from somewhere far, far below you, playing with the finer hairs on the side of your head.

Beside you, Death simply replies, “It is.”

You draw out a long, slow whistle. “Wow…” Then, “Glad we came up that yesterday, and didn’t fall down it… Wait.” Grimacing, you send the Horseman a lopsided frown, face screwed up apprehensively. “It’s not… We’re not going down there now, are we?”

Beneath his mask, Death’s lips twitch. “No,” he replies, watching your shoulders slump, palpably relieved, “There’s a door on the other side.” 

With that, he gestures for you to look by bobbing his chin at something on the other side of the sizeable gap.

Sure enough, as you raise your head and squint through the dim lighting, your gaze lands upon a nondescript pair of doors standing in wait at the far end of the corridor.

“Oh, good,” you sigh as Death moves towards the wall, “So… We’re jumping, then?”

“Again, no. Do you ever watch where you’re going?” he teases, his eyes crinkling at the edges of his dark sockets and betraying that he’s more amused than annoyed, “Here… There’s a way across on this side. The wood is still intact.”

“Intact,” you parrot dubiously, “Right.”

Regardless, traipsing up behind him, you follow his line of sight and glance down to find that, yes, at the edge of the hole, there’s a narrow stretch of mostly intact floorboards that hug the wall, spanning from your side of the gap to the other. The problem, however, is the remaining boards that have managed to cling to their fittings in the wall barely appear strong or wide enough to admit even one person at a time. Their splintered edges extend out over the hole, evoking the awful comparison of a wooden plank extending from the port side of a pirate ship. One misplaced foot, and you’ll tumble straight down into the depths of that hungry void.

“Looks…. sturdy,” you comment aloud, pulling your mouth into a thin, sceptical line.

“If it’ll carry the Chancellor, it’ll carry you,” Death reasons, stepping aside and sweeping his hand out to gesture at the start of the ‘path.’ “Ladies first,” he offers.

You can’t help but snort, flashing him a begrudgingly amused smile and quipping, “Age before beauty, Death.”

Luminous eyes narrow in the sockets of his mask, but with the softest exhale that he’ll insist is not a laugh, he simply turns from you and steps out onto the narrow strip of flooring, beckoning for you to follow.

“Just stay close,” he says gruffly.

In spite of the dismissive intonation, you don’t miss the unspoken consideration that lays hidden between the lines of his command.

‘If the floor breaks, I need to be close enough to catch you.’

“Read you loud and clear,” you mutter, treading gingerly onto the floorboards and wincing at the way they creak and bow under your weight where they definitely hadn’t when Death trod on them.

With one hand braced against the rough-hewn wall, you stick to your companion like glue, making your way slowly but steadily across the broken path, cringing visibly with every uneven step.

It isn’t far. Only a dozen feet or so to the other side. Admittedly, you’re a little envious of the way Death hardly seems to dip the boards he stands on, unlike you, who can feel every one buckle and groan underneath your boots.

You just chalk it up to another one of those mind-boggling things you’ll never truly fathom about the Grim Reaper, like how he can walk on top of ash or sand without sinking up to his knees in it.

‘Show off…’ you muse fondly.

Something else that dawns on you is that he’s moving at a deliberately gradual pace, sending several backwards glances over his shoulder at you.

Despite the tight ball of nerves rolling around in your stomach, an ember of appreciation spreads its warmth out across your chest.

Then again, perhaps he’s just keeping an eye on you because he thinks you’re clumsy and are bound to-

‘SNAP!’

The ember extinguishes in the blink of an eye, and the strangled curse that you choke out gets stuck in your throat as the surface below you suddenly and unexpectedly disappears.

For one, gut-wrenching second, you’re falling sideways, arms pinwheeling to try and reorient yourself on a floorboard that’s already plummeting down into the hole ahead of you, as if it just can’t wait to beat you to the bottom of a deadly fall.

And then, just as abruptly as it had begun, your impromptu tumble is cut short by the strong arm that darts around your waist and goes taut, jerking your body to a painful halt and hauling you back up through the air instead. Within another second, you’re sent crashing into a sturdy, cadaverous torso, grunting in shock as your cheekbone knocks against the bottom of Death’s sternum.

Breathing hard, you shakily pry your eyelids apart, increasingly aware that there’s wood underneath your feet again, and an enormous hand splayed out across the width of your back, keeping you pinned in place and sending tingling chills up and down your spine.

Letting out a wobbly breath, you crane your neck back to see the underside of Death’s strong chin, then rove your gaze up further to find the Horseman peering back down at you with eyes as wide as your own, as if even he can’t believe he just caught you.

With your heart thudding loudly in your ears, you manage to swallow through a bone-dry throat and gush, “Ho-lee~ shit. Thanks, Death.”

Even now, it still puzzles the Horseman every time you give him a word of thanks.

Blinking once, he’s quick to lower his brows and school his expression into a flat, stony glare. Though most of it remains hidden from view behind his mask, he has no doubt that his eyes say everything they need to say.

"Are all humans as hapless as you?” Death grouses, sliding both of his sizeable hands to your waist and effortlessly lifting you into the air with the same ease he’d pull his brother’s gun from its holster, “Or were you jinxed as an infant?”

Thrown off balance without a solid surface under your feet, you hurriedly clasp your hands on top of Death’s wide wrists, bracing yourself against them as he swings you carefully around to his front. From there, he resolves to simply carry you the remaining distance to the other side.

A small part of you is mortified at being manhandled so easily, but there’s a far larger part that’s more grateful than it is embarrassed.

Once he’s well clear of the ledge, Death lowers you until your boots hit the floor, and he retrieves his hands from your waist.

“Thanks,” you tell him again, slipping your own hands from his wrists to dust yourself off.

And again, Death’s mind does a funny little skip.

Giving his head a minute shake, he silently gripes to himself as he pivots on a heel and marches with purpose to the doors, throwing them open and allowing an intrusion of daylight to flood its way into the corridor.

“Ah!” you complain softly, throwing an arm up to shield your eyes against the sudden onslaught.

Death just squints, his golden stare aglow as he turns it to the desert beyond the doors.

Together, you step out into the sickly, green light of an ethereal sunrise.

A wide, wooden gangplank of questionable stability extends from your doorway down to an ash-strewn courtyard on the other side.

It seems you’ve reached the exit.

Heaving a sigh, you tilt your head back, seeking to feel the warmth of a foreign sun on your face. No sooner have you lifted your eyes to the horizon though than every muscle in your body seizes up all at once, and your brain screeches to a sudden, jarring halt.

You try to make sense of what you’re seeing…

It’s the sheer scale that flummoxes you for a second, rooting your feet to the ground through shock at first, but steadily, the all-too familiar curdle of fear starts to claw its way up your throat.

You blink hard. Then once again, as if your own vision is to blame for conjuring up a mirage of two, mountain-sized serpents coiled around a pair of crumbling towers in the distance.

It’s like gaping up at writhing skyscrapers. The titans that had been towing the Eternal Throne have found a temporary eyrie, coiled around the spires that stand on either side of a vast structure, their rotting, serpentine heads breaching the sky itself.

Massive chains stretch from fixtures on the Eternal Throne’s bow and are still secured to the anchors that have been thrust straight through the beasts’ skulls, keeping them tied to the fortress.

Your jaw hangs ajar, awed by their majesty but horrified of their size. Even with half of their bodies disappearing over the edge of a sandy plateau, you can tell that they would have absolutely dwarfed the Guardian.

The monumental scales on their underbellies clench and constrict around their chosen towers, scraping centuries’ worth of stone off the outer walls and sending the residue cascading down in chunks to the courtyard below.

Vast, uneven cracks mar the corners of each spire, telltale signs that this is a perch the serpents frequent.

“Oh my god,” you whisper reverently, taking two, small steps into Death’s shadow, never daring to take your eyes off the monstrous snakes.

“I wouldn’t worry about them,” comes the Horseman’s easy retort as he casually steps out onto the gangplank, “I doubt you’d make much of a meal.”

He doesn’t need to see to know that you’re shooting a look of abject horror at the back of his skull.

“Calm yourself,” he adds mercifully, a smirk threatening to warp his mouth to its own whims, “The dead don’t eat.”

Wringing your hands, you start after Death, planting your steps carefully as you descend the gangplank behind him, keeping your eyes fixed on the serpents high above you. “It isn’t so much being eaten that worries me,” you retort, “They could breathe at us and send us flying.”

“… The dead don’t breathe either.”

As if to contend his claim, a sudden, earth-shattering hiss slithers up the length of an exposed throat as the serpent on the Eastern tower parts its jaws, filling the very world around you with a tremulous screech that has you slapping your palms over your ears, teeth buzzing in your skull.

Stretching its colossal neck towards the opposite tower, the first serpent hisses, then with the power and volume of a thunderclap, it snaps its jaws together near the throat of its twin, barely scraping the softer scales underneath its chin.

Like a planet moving out of alignment, the other beast simply raises itself higher up the tower, part of its ribcage visibly quivering through gaps you can see in its flesh as it issues a loud, sonorous growl and lunges forwards to ‘nip’ at the anchor sticking out from its companion’s head.

“Are they…?” you begin, pausing on the gangplank as the titanic snakes draw away from one another again and shake out their great, scaled necks, causing the chains to rattle loudly over your head.

“Are they playing?”

You can only imagine the damage these things could do to one another if they really wanted to, but here, you’re reminded of a pair of cats batting at one another before retreating again, tolerant of the other’s presence, but still prone to antagonise as they see fit.

A breath rushes out of you in a wheezing laugh.

They could level a city with barely any effort. All they’d have to do is fly a little too close to the ground. And here they are.

Play fighting.

Giving your head a shake, you pick up your jaw and start after Death again, wondering who the maniac was that managed to shackle those titans to a floating fortress in the first place, let alone trained them to tow it across an endless, desert sky.

Hopping off the bottom of the gangplank, you have a brief moment to appreciate solid ground under your feet once again before you’re suddenly alerted to movement up ahead. Your head snaps up, and from the corner of an eye, you notice that Death has already stopped in his tracks, his own stare adhered to a figure shuffling towards you from the massive structure ahead.

Tall, broad, draped in robes and sporting a distinct, ovine head-…

All at once, you perk up, face brightening in recognition.

Ostegoth trundles towards you, his head angled down at the pipe that seems to be constantly at hand. He’s too busy tapping his gnarled fingers against its bowl to notice that you and Death have appeared several dozen yards in front of him.

“Ostegoth!” you call out, your wariness of the serpents dissipating in your delight of seeing the old capracus again, “Hey! Over here!”

Startling to a complete standstill, Ostegoth almost drops his pipe before he manages to fumble it back into his grasp and throws his woolly head up to squint along the length of the courtyard. When he spots you waving at him, his features open up in pleasant surprise, and his muzzle stretches wide with a smile.

“Ah! Salutations, little Lamb!” he replies, tipping the pipe towards you in greeting, “I see you made it to the Eternal Throne after all!”

“Thanks to your advice,” you remind him, breezing past the Horseman, who seems content to let you stray ahead, for the time being.

With a rustle of his rich, brown robes, Ostegoth traipses to a halt as you bound up to meet him, skidding to your own stop at his hooves and tilting your head back to give him a smile that warms his lonely chest.

“God, it’s nice to see a friendly face,” you beam, earning a sheepish chuckle from the old one.

“Is it…? Hmm. Likewise,” he returns jovially, his gnarled hand twitching towards you for a moment before he seems to reconsider and returns it to his side.

Old habits die hard, he reflects… It’s been some time since he was in the presence of a youngling. Longer still since he’s affectionately ruffled the wool on a Capracus lamb’s head.

Shaking off bitter-sweet memories, he matches your smile and asks, “Ah but tell me; How goes your search for the Well?”

“Poorly,” Death’s rough voice grunts behind you, closer than you thought it would be.

Drawing to a halt at your side, he eases his head back and leers up at the Capracus, his eyes narrowed guardedly.

“What are you doing here?” he demands, “And more to the point, how did you get here? We were travelling all night.”

There’s an underlying accusation barely hidden between his words. ‘You’d better not have followed us.’

With a slow incline his head, Ostegoth remains patient and sage in his response. “I heard whispers that the Throne was heading South-west for the first time in decades, and the only thing out here of note is the Gilded arena. And besides,” he adds, offering Death a cryptic smile, “A merchant knows many roads. Not all of them are shared with Horsemen… As for why I’m here…” Trailing off, he raises the pipe and wraps his lips around the end of its long, slender stem, his furred cheeks hollowing as he takes a few puffs, savouring the smoke’s taste on his palette.

Humming contentedly, he draws the pipe back and lets out a long, gentle exhale, neck craned sideways to blow the smoke well away from you. “Well, I am a merchant,” he deadpans, clearing his throat and aiming a rather flat look at the Horseman, “And this ship is the only civilised locality within a thousand miles. Where else do you suggest I go to trade?”

Death doesn’t bother to conceal a derisive scoff and folds his arms curtly over his chest. “The dead have use of your wares?”

“Everyone has needs, Horseman,” Ostegoth replies, “Even the dead… Perhaps they most of all. That Blademaster is always particularly interested in my inventory.”

“Blademaster?” You perk up at once. “You know Draven?”

Unseen, Death’s scowl darkens.

Dipping his horned head, Ostegoth appraises you curiously as he runs a long, dark fingernail through his ivory beard. “Indeed, I do, Lamb. A fine lad, that one. Very fine.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure he’s quite the paragon,” Death gripes, raising his voice and clapping his palms together impatiently, “Now, I’m afraid we haven’t got time to stay and chat. We’re supposed to be on an errand.” This he says while casting a rather pointed glare at the side of your head.

“An errand?” Ostegoth’s small, floppy ears prick forward attentively, giving the Horseman an up and down glance as if he finds the prospect of Death completing errands completely absurd.

“I’d hardly call it an errand,” you interject with a wry smile, “Apparently Death can’t get in to see the King without proving himself in a fight, or something.”

And just like that, the Capracus blinks, drawing his head back and furrowing the skin above his browbone.

“… Fight….” Quietly, he swivels around to peer up at the towering stone wall of the amphitheatre laying in wait behind him. Then, breathing a sigh that causes the crystals on his robe to clink softly as his chest rises and falls, Ostegoth’s jaundiced, sunken eyes slip shut, and in a whisper, he utters, “Ah… Gnashor… I might have known.”

“Gnashor?” you echo bemusedly, while at the same time, Death asks, “Might have known what?”

Rather than answer however, Ostegoth simply stands there, staring up at the structure in silence for several, long moments, and all you can hear are the serpents high above you hissing through immense, decomposed lungs as they resettle themselves around their perches.

“Ostegoth?” you prod again, “Who’s Gnashor?”

… Nothing.

Shifting your weight onto your other foot, you spare a quick, searching look up at Death, only to find that he’s regarding the capracus with a glare that could only be described as dubious.

At last, after a long stretch of further, uncomfortable quiet that Ostegoth seems too lost in thought to break, the Horseman tuts, uncrossing his arms as he meets your questioning gaze with a roll of his eyes. “Come on,” he tells you, “We’ve dawdled here long enough.”

Stalking past your new, enigmatic acquaintance, Death heads for the arched doorway, shooting a glance over his shoulder when your footsteps don’t immediately follow.

“Y/n!” he barks.

Startled, you drop the hand you’d been stretching towards Ostegoth’s arm.

“Oh – er, coming!”

Chewing on your lip, you reluctantly sidle past the Capracus, stealing a glance back at him as you go. He’s moved his gaze to the ground, the ridge between his brows turning deep and contemplative.

“Well… Bye, Ostegoth,” you call out to him hesitantly, lifting your hand in a half-hearted wave.

At the sound of his name, he suddenly blinks, his long pupils expanding with surprise. Lifting his head, he meets your troubled look and pulls a face, tapping his pipe’s bowl in a palm.

Just as you turn around and see Death pushing open the doors, the strained atmosphere is cut by Ostegoth’s voice.

“Horseman!”

Death’s massive silhouette pauses in the doorway, long enough for you to catch up.

The pair of you turn to regard the old Capracus; you with anticipation, Death with impatience.

Long, furred fingers curl tightly around the stem of his pipe. “Are you certain this the only way?”

Frowning, you hear Death give off a tiny, irritated exhale before he retorts, “If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here, would I?” Then, a little more waspishly, he adds, “Why? Do you doubt my imminent victory?”

But Ostegoth has already withdrawn his focus from the Horseman and given it to you instead.

Strange, yellow eyes meet yours across the courtyard, softening considerably when they do. He gives you a funny look, one you can’t decipher, not least because it still seems so bizarre to see an ovine man pull any expression at all, but you almost get the inkling that he’s studying you, turning something over in his mind.

What is he-…?

“Tell me, little Lamb,” he says abruptly, cutting off your train of thought, “Will you fight the Champion?”

Taken aback, you exchange a glance with Death and open your mouth to reply, but your companion beats you to it with his own, curt response.

“Don’t be foolish,” he scoffs at Ostegoth, “Of course she won’t.”

Once again, the Capracus blithely ignores Death’s input, keeping his eyes fixed on you instead.

Suddenly uneasy, you open your mouth and halfway manage to ask, “Why?” before Ostegoth interrupts.

“You must not raise a weapon against the Champion,” he stresses, tone uncharacteristically urgent, “Do you understand?”

Letting out a bewildered little laugh, you can only think to offer him an awkward smile and a nod. “Yeah, I mean - don’t worry. For once, I’m actually planning to stay out of it.”

“Hmph. I’ll believe that when I see it,” Death grumbles, turning to the stairwell beyond the doors and disappearing into it.

Shooting a faux-offended glare at his retreating back, you start to follow only to hesitate once you reach the doorway.

Planting a hand on the cool, stone frame, you turn to the Capracus one last time, finding that he’s still peering after you, his forehead wrinkled deeply with an expression you’ve-… you’ve seen before….

The moment you place it, your smile drops, and the air is almost knocked out of your lungs.

It’s the same look you used to catch Eideard sending your way.

Gentle worry on a pensive, ancient face…

The heart in your chest murmurs sadly, and your eyes threaten to mist over.

Giving a hard sniff, you raise your hand again in farewell and croak, “We’ll see you on the ship, yeah?”

Ostegoth opens his muzzle to respond.

“Are you coming!?” Death’s voice drowns out whatever the old one might have said.

So, with an apologetic shrug, you slip through the doors and hurry after your impatient friend, failing to spot the hand that Ostegoth has lain tenderly over his old, ragged heart.

The words he utters are lifted from his muzzle, drifting away on the breeze before they can follow you through the doorway.

“Be safe…”

-------------------------------------------------------------

“Well,” you break the silence that has been lingering between you and Death for the last few minutes as you both climb yet another staircase within the ancient, evidently abandoned arena, “That was… interesting.”

“Hmph… Interesting,” the Horseman echoes derisively, “Try ‘suspicious.”

“You’re wondering if he knows who the Champion is.” You have to admit, you’ve been thinking the same thing.

There’s no way Ostegoth fought the Champion… Is there? You know nothing of the Capracus, save for the fact that he’s the last of his kind.

Thoughtful, you find yourself staring blankly at the mouldy, wooden walls all around you. Much like everything else you’ve seen in the realm, this place seems two heavy stomps away from collapsing in on itself. Everything here, the architecture, the people, they all seem to hang suspended in a space between death and complete and utter decay.

It reminds you of the Horseman, in a way.  Alive, but not. Half dead, with a working body and mind, but a heart that’s long since ceased to beat.

He’s… liminal, you realise mutely, much like the Land of the Dead.

It makes you curious.

“Hey, Death? Can I ask you something?”

The Nephilim's sigh almost feels traditional at this point. “I imagine you’ll ask regardless of whether I say yes or no.”

Undeterred, you blurt, “Do you live here?”

“Do I-… Excuse me?”

“I mean in this world,” you clarify, skipping a step that’s a little more worn than the others, “In the Dead Lands?”

“Why would you assume I-…" Trailing off, he hums, mulling it over. "Hmm… Actually, I suppose I can see why you’d assume that…”

“So, this isn’t your home?”

“I don’t have-…” Pushing another long-suffering sigh through his nostrils, he amends, “No. I do not live in the Land of the Dead.”

“Huh.”

“… Huh?” he echoes waspishly.

Sensing his rising impatience, you quickly elaborate. “No, I mean… It just… seems so you.”

Well… Death can’t decide if he should take that as an insult or a compliment.

“Why are you asking me this?” he accuses you suddenly, his voice a touch cooler than it was before. Not defensive, per se, but definitely guarded.

“Gee, Death. Not sure,” you chuckle, unperturbed or perhaps unaware of the shift in tone, “Maybe I just want to get to know you better?”

All at once, the Horseman’s shoulders prickle with warning and he snaps his head forwards, eyes burning a hole through the steps below his boots. He doesn’t reply. Unbidden, age-old instincts raise their sleepy heads, no matter how he tries to rationalise the point of your question.

For some time, the only response you get is the soft padding of his boots on the stone steps, accompanied by your far louder, more hurried footfalls that send echoes back up the stairwell. After a long and admittedly awkward pause, you let out a quick sound of bemusement, cocking a brow and asking the back of Death’s head, “What? Is it taboo for Horsemen to ask each other about where they live?”

His retort is immediate, loud and barbed, cutting off the end of your sentence. “It’s suspicious.”

“I’m sorry? It’s suspicious to ask where you live?”

“Knowledge is power," he snaps, "Even the most insignificant details can be used against you if discovered by the wrong person. It’s never wise to freely give that knowledge away.” After a pause, he adds, “Not even my brothers and sister know where I live.

Again, you blurt out a quick, incredulous scoff. “You’re kidding.”

But when Death remains entirely silent, your humour evaporates like rain on a hot tin roof. “Oh my god… You’re serious…. I wasn’t trying to -… Look, you know I wasn’t asking because I want to use it against you, right?”

For the sake of his pride, Death pretends to consider your words carefully, though deep down, he’s already sure of his answer. He does know. But it’s hard to shake the manacles of an eternity’s worth of suspicion.

“For humans,” you continue cautiously, “It’s totally normal to ask our friends about themselves.”

When all he does is bristle in response, you realise it’s probably best to change the subject.

“Right... Anyway, um... You reckon they fought?” you muse aloud.

“Who?”

“Ostegoth and the Champion," you clarify, "Is that why he wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be fighting, uh, what was his name? Gnasher?”

“Gnashor,” Death corrects you, his feathers gradually unruffling themselves, “And I highly doubt the old goat has fought much of anything, let alone the Dead King’s Champion.”

Pulling your lips into a tight line, you softly retort, “You don’t know that.”

The Horseman doesn’t respond.

-------------------------------------------

After several more minutes, you finally reach the top of the stairs and find yourselves standing at the head of a colossal amphitheatre, open to the sky and surrounded on every side by towering, stone walls. Vast spires of stone loom in the distance, well beyond this place, and you start to imagine a vast, dead city laying just past its boundaries.

“Welcome to the Gilded Arena,” Death remarks, unimpressed.

“Wow.” Laying your hands on your hips, you pivot around to survey the immediate vicinity. “Quite the turnout.”

Save for you and the Horseman, there doesn’t appear to be another soul in sight.

“Well,” Death shrugs one bulbous shoulder, “I never was one for crowds.”  

Venturing forward, your feet move off wood and onto stone slabs, and as you amble out of the shadow of the hall behind you, you feel the sun warming the top of your head again.

Stretched out to either side of you is a walkway, wide and entirely paved with mossy stone. It angles sharply around a corner on both sides, and as you cast your gaze over the area, you realise it loops in a massive square. Surrounding the centre of that square, is a barricade made from black, iron spokes.

Unable to fight against the nervous curiosity building in your stomach, you allow your feet to carry you forwards, right across the wide walkway until you reach the metal barrier, where you slip your fingers around the rusted bars and peer down through the gaps.

All at once, an ice-cold dread bubbles up from the pit of your stomach, blooming into something unignorable.

“Oh, my god.” You gulp thickly, nausea churning in your guts.

Materialising beside you, Death’s eye sweeps over the gladiatorial pit below.

And it is a pit, you decide with a grimace, akin to the ones you’d find in the Colosseums of Earth, with high walls on all four sides and a flat, ashy ground. Eight, ominous pillars of wood are spaced evenly around the arena. And set into the furthest wall, you spot the dark but definable grid of a portcullis.

Thick chains have been hammered into the sides of each pillar, and from them, dangling by manacles worn shut forever by rust, are…

“Skeletons?!” you gasp aloud, your body turning stiff.

Indeed, from at least half the pillars, several skeletons of various size and shape have been strung up, their sun-bleached bones browning in the daylight.

You half expect them to raise their skulls to glare up at you, but as the seconds tick by without any movement, you deduce that these skeletons must really be dead. In the traditional sense.

At least, you hope they are.

An eternity spent dangling by their wrists in this lonely place would be a cruel, awful fate.

“That’s a little morbid,” you comment, pulling a face at one skeleton whose arms, horned skull and torso are all that’s left of it. Everything below the spine has rotted off and fallen in a heap to the ground below, joining hundreds of other calcified bones that are scattered across the arena.

Hundreds…

‘Shit,’ you think to yourself, tugging worriedly at the hem of your skirt, ‘How many people died here?’

“Mm. What remains of those that failed,” comes Death’s voice, quiet and thoughtful as he scans the pit.

You don’t even bother to suppress a visceral shudder at that.

Tearing your eyes off the pillars, you shoot him a thin-lipped smile, wondering how much it must resemble a grimace. “Just... do me a favour? Promise I’m not gonna see your body strung up there when this is over?”

Death twists his mask towards you, taking in the tense pinch of your brow. “Hah,” he snorts, “And give Dust the satisfaction of pecking out my innards?”

“Death.”

“Do you really have so little faith in me?” he quips.

Aiming a swat at his arm that you miss on purpose, you turn away from him to lean against the fence and mutter, “Well, it’s hard to know who to bet on if I haven’t seen your opponent yet.”

After a moment of hesitation, you almost add, ‘just kidding,’ but a fleeting glance up at the Horseman’s profile reveals a glimmer of humour squeezing his eyes at their edges. He knows.

So, you close your mouth and instead return your gaze to the sprawling arena below.

From the safety of the elevated walkway, you squint down into the pit, casting a careful eye over every shadowy corner, and trying to peek behind the pillars.

“… Huh,” you say, furrowing your brow, “Um… Where do you think this Champion is?”

“I doubt he just waits around down here for some fool to come along and challenge him,” Death replies, placing a hand on the metal railing and bracing himself to vault right over it.

Before he can though, your fingers suddenly curl around what they’re able to of his immense bicep, delicately clutching at the cold skin as if you could prevent a force of nature from moving.

Perhaps it says something about Death that it actually works.

Rather than snatch his arm away as he might have done several days ago, the Horseman merely twists his mask around to appraise you coolly, only for his expression to waver when he sees you peering back up at him with an imploring frown.

“Please, be careful,” you say, neither demanding not demeaning, just a statement of concern expressed to a Nephilim for whom concern is (and always will be) an alien concept.

A thousand responses flit through his skull. Some prompt him to give you a sarcastic remark. Others, a harsh rebuttal of your well-meaning sentiment. ‘What sort of advice is that for one of the Four?’ he might say.

But there’s a sincerity to you, as always, that douses indignation and soothes his reflex to brush your worry aside like it’s a silly, frivolous thing. He can even see the tiny, yellow pinpricks of his own eyes reflected in your watery gaze.

‘Humans,’ he sighs internally.

Again, you’re throwing him off kilter. Something that’s been happening with startling frequency of late.

Resolving to address that at a later date, Death doesn’t say a word, instead offering you the tiniest of nods as he pulls quietly from your grasp and lays both of his hands on the metal barrier in front of him.

You let your fingers slip off his arm, stepping back to give him the space to swing his leg over the bars.

Shooting you a brief look over his shoulder, he only issues one, stark order. “Stay. Here.”

And all you do is nod in return, offering him a thin smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

With a grunt, Death hoists himself up, effortlessly vaulting over the barricade and plummeting ten feet to the ashen ground below. He hits it lightly, nearly soundless save for the clink of his boot buckles, sending a plume of ash blossoming out around the spot where he lands.

Rising to his full height, he strains his sensitive ears to try and catch any sounds above the moaning desert winds and your anxiously shuffling feet up on the stands.

“It’s quiet,” he remarks to himself, though even he won’t venture to add the typical follow-on to that remark. No, he isn’t superstitious, but eons of experience have taught him that the Universe is full of patterns, and it does so love to try and catch him out…

Venturing further from the wall, Death continues to send searching glares at the pillars, his eyes lingering on a skull that’s turned to face the other end of the arena, staring blankly and eternally at the walls that entomb it.

On a whim, he follows its gaze, and finds himself look straight at the portcullis. Down here, it seems so much larger than it had from the stands.

Rusted, metal bars as thick as his wrists conceal nothing but a pitch-black darkness beyond the grid.

Senses primed to a hair-trigger, Death continues marching forwards, his steps light, his eyes unblinking and affixed to the looming, black gate.

The moaning wind picks up, blowing through the pillars and sending the skeletons swaying gently to and fro, bones knocking hollowly against one another.

All of a sudden, Death stops in his tracks.

Tiny particles of grit roll and tumble over the ground towards the Horseman’s boots, drawing his eyes down to watch them skitter past for a second before he jolts, snatching his head back up, hands flying down to the hilts of his scythes.

Without warning, the whole arena is sent shaking under the force of an almighty, ear-splitting roar.

The bellow reverberates throughout the amphitheatre, petering out on an echo carried off by the winds.

For the breadth of a second, everything falls silent once more.

It isn’t to last.

Somewhere inside the structure, a hidden winch starts to turn of its own preternatural accord. Metal chains jangle and clatter, and with a squeal of rusty hinges, the portcullis begins to rise, disappearing into the vertical grooves that had been carved into the wall thousands of years ago.

And from behind that dark, iron grid, twin balls of radiant green light spark to life.

Every hair on your body stands to attention as a guttural, hissing growl slides beneath the ever-widening gap.

Then, with a final screech, the portcullis clanks to a stop, the spikes jutting down from the roof of the hypogeum’s exit, like a vault yawning open to unleash a terrible monster.

Something innate bids you to call Death back to the safety of the stands, as if to warn him. But of what? He already knows.

An awful hole opens up under your feet, sucking any and all optimism down into it.

Ostegoth’s perturbed expression flits in front of your mind’s eye, and you wish you’d pressed him for more information. In fact, it occurs to you far too late that neither you nor Death had asked anyone what lays in wait in this arena.

‘But hindsight is a wonderful thing,’ you remind yourself firmly, curling anxious fingers around the bars of the fence, ‘Besides, if Death can take down the Guardian, he can certainly beat the Dead King’s Champion….’

Right?

Before you can stop it, a cold, empty doubt worms its way under your ribcage and sinks its teeth into your heart.

Down in the pit, Death’s mask dips threateningly, and in one, lighting-quick motion, he rips his scythes free, their blades catching the sunlight and glinting with deadly serration.

It’s as if their very appearance serves as the strike of a match because whatever had been lurking behind that gate comes exploding violently through it.

Death’s ears prick at the sound of your yelp as a ghastly beast slithers beneath the portcullis and emerges into the light.

He won’t begrudge you for your alarm. It is a nightmare given form.

At first glance, it looks like a snake. Fitting, he supposes, given that this realm seems so full of them.

The twin sky serpents, the Chancellor, and now this monstrosity…

“Gnashor, I presume?”

A golden, hominin skull sits at the head of a serpentine body, jaws parted wide to issue an animalistic hiss down at the Horseman.

Longer than the carriage of a train, Gnashor looks to be made entirely of solid, sun-bleached bone segments not unlike the spinal column of some long-dead sauropod, and around its skull, there hangs a cumbersome, black band of solid metal, fastened like a bear-trap above and below its head.

Clenching his jaw, Death muses that it’s presence might make removing this thing’s skull a little trickier.

A burning, green gem is stamped squarely at the centre of its cranium and flares with furious light, just like the sparks inside its empty sockets do as the beast hurtles towards Death, twisting its way over the ash with alarming speed.

Planting his right foot on the ground, the Horseman braces himself, waiting until it’s almost upon him before he suddenly kicks off, launching himself sideways and letting it careen right over the spot he’d just been standing.

Several tonnes of living bone barrels past, and as it does, Death twists himself about in mid-air and gives a testing swipe of his scythe. It glances harmlessly off the creature’s tail with a muted ‘shink.’

‘Solid as rock,’ Death notes irritably.        

The force of its passing whips up a maelstrom of ash into Death’s mask, but he merely turns his back to the gale and readies his stance for another pass.

The almighty skull starts to turn, and its body follows suit, arching a graceful curve around the pit before it circles completely back to Death.

Eyes narrowed to thin slits of amber, the Horseman stands his ground, assessing, waiting for it to make the next move…

So, when it suddenly screeches to a stop with its massive jaw raising off the ground like a rearing cobra, he’s caught wildly off guard.

With barely a dozen paces between them, Gnashor poises for several, quavering seconds, its hateful glare boring into the Horseman with such contempt, he can nearly feel the malice rolling off its undulating body in waves and pushing against his own magics.

Hate is potent. This thing seems to have it in spades.

But something else occurs to him then. Whilst he’s been busy casting analytic glances at every part of the beast, studying it for signs of weakness, Gnashor, in turn, appears to be doing the same right back.

A mark of intelligence, he realises.

What is it humans say? ‘Know thy enemy?’

Death’s wrappings creak as he tightens his grip on the scythes. “What are you waiting for…?” he murmurs under his breath.

When Gnashor only shakes its segments like a rattlesnake warding off a larger predator, Death takes a testing step towards his quarry.

The reaction, as predicted, is visceral.

Gnashor’s skull recoils, and it lifts itself higher off the ground, jaws spread to roar threateningly at the Horseman’s advance, and without warning, it lunges….

…Straight. Down.

Death even leans back, preparing to dodge what he assumed would turn into a frontal attack. He’s almost thrown off his feet when Gnashor slams its colossal, bear-trap visor into the ash, and starts pushing in.

The power at the back of the Champion must be immense, for the ground gives way in a flash as if to readily accept those ancient bones back into its depths.

Spinal segments undulate, rippling with unbelievable strength as the backend of the creature’s entire body tips upwards. Within seconds, Gnashor has forced itself determinedly under the ground, and with a lash of its tail tip, it vanishes completely, leaving a burrowing hole in its wake that quickly begins to fill once again with sand and ash.

Somewhere above the arena, Death hears you give an indignant shout. “What the-!? That’s not fair!”

And while he appreciates the sentiment and your naïve expectations, battles are rarely won by playing fair. He has to commend the Champion. This might be harder than he anticipated…

The ground under his feet trembles like there’s an earthquake rolling through the amphitheatre. Spinning slowly in place, he tries to follow the vibrations, feeling for their intensity and spitting a very human curse off his tongue – one he must have picked up from you, somehow.

Sharp, discerning eyes scan the ground, but in the end-

“Death!” You’re the one who spots it first. “Behind you!”

Your shrill voice cuts above the rumble of Gnashor’s tunnelling, and as Death whirls around, he finally zeroes in on what you’d alerted him to.

At the other end of the arena - but quickly eating up the distance – a long lump of churning ash is careening across the ground in his direction. Gnashor lays just below the surface, burrowing along without hinderance.

The lump is rising up under his boots before he can heave a weary sigh.

In a split-second decision, he dives forwards and hits the dirt just as the ground behind him splits apart.

Gnashor erupts from the ash in a vertical lunge, his roaring skull aimed like a missile towards the sky.

Quick as a flash, Death rolls onto his back and drops one scythe to raise his free hand towards the beast’s spine.

“Oh no you don’t,” he growls.

His gauntlet flashes with a familiar, purple light, and the phantom copy of his appendage launches from the ether, translucent, disjointed fingers reaching for their target.

Bullseye.

They hit one of Gnashor’s jutting spinal segments behind its neck, instantly clamping down around the vertebrae with a vengeance. Then, taking up both scythes in one hand and giving his opposite arm a vicious wrench, Death uses the ethereal tether to haul himself off the ground, through the air, and straight onto the Champion’s back.

The ensuing howl of rage is loud enough to shake the ramparts above you.

With its job done, the phantom hand dissolves into wisps of indigo smoke as Death digs his natural fingers into the grooves around Gnashor’s neck, adhering himself to the writhing beast with one hand while the other swings his scythes down and hooks the curved blades underneath its body, pulling the metal up to cut into its ‘throat.’

He might have succeeded in severing its head after all, if Gnashor hadn’t wised up and chosen that precise moment to buck.

A sudden, violent lurch to the side dislodges Death’s weapons from its neck as the Champion vaults up and down, its serpentine body dancing erratically like a ribbon swept up in a maelstrom. Stubborn as a burr, the Horseman’s grip turns crushing, and he hooks his ankles over each other beneath Gnashor’s body, determined not to be thrown.

He’s a Rider, no beast could unsaddle him.

In awe, you watch from the stands, your eyes blown wide, shining with astonishment as Gnashor thrashes around the arena. Not once does Death slip. He’s leaning backwards, sitting himself heavily against one of the spinal vertebrae and letting his body roll with every, erratic motion.

You’ve seen him on Despair, but the horse and his rider are so in sync, they make it look effortless. This though… This takes real mastery. This is the Horseman in him, you realise with a growing swell of amazement and - oddly enough - pride, prompting you to pump your fist in the air and cheer, “Yeah! Woo! Ride ‘em, Cowboy!”

If Death hears your encouragement – and there’s no doubt that he does – he doesn’t respond. Can’t in fact. Because without warning, which isn’t so surprising, Gnashor suddenly changes tactics.

If it can’t throw him off, then it will try to knock him off.

Indignant, it sets its sights on one of the pillars, and a desperate gleam flashes across its sockets.

In a move neither you nor Death would have anticipated, Gnashor coils its bones together like a spring and, in one, quick jerk, it unfurls itself, launching towards the structure.  

The Horseman realises its intent barely a second before impact.

Thinking on his feet, he hunkers down against the beast’s spine and throws himself to the opposite side, putting as much weight behind his lurch as possible.

Gnashor’s flank hits the column with an almighty crash, sending chunks of wood flying in every direction. Splinters pepper like hailstones down against Death’s shoulders and into his hair, and while he escapes being crushed entirely, there’s still a sickening crunch, followed by an unusual, uninvited stab of discomfort that goes shooting up his leg, so unfamiliar to him that he doesn’t register it for what it is at first.

His boot, it seems, the one slung around Gnashor’s serpentine neck to adhere him in place, had not been spared from the impact.

Metal and leather dig into his calf as his unorthodox mount slides down the pillar and hits the ground, shaking off its own daze, yet the only utterance Death makes is a small, muted grunt that he keeps locked behind his gritted teeth.

By contrast, your reaction borders on deafening.

“DEATH!” you yelp shrilly, all traces of enthusiasm gone.

Throwing yourself against the fence, you watch in horror as the Champion shakes the impact off and begins to rise, its armoured skull twisting around on itself to glare at the Horseman still clinging to its back.

The sound of your voice, harrowed and fraught with worry, steals a portion of Death’s focus from the battle. Snapping his gaze up to the top of the pit, his eyes dart left and right, seeking you out, and when he finds you, he’s quick to forget about the ache in his leg.

You’re leaning precariously over the barricade, your hands braced on top of the bars to lift yourself onto your tiptoes as if you’re moments away from vaulting over the fence entirely, driven by the same foolish, dogged loyalty that had urged you to follow him to this dead realm.

A bullet of alarm slugs the Horseman in his chest, just underneath the remnants of the Crowfather’s lantern.

“STAY THERE!” he bellows, his grasp on Gnashor slipping as it thrusts its skull into a forward charge, aiming for one of the intact pillars.

Up above, you’re almost chewing a hole through your cheek, one leg twitching as though you mean to sling it over the fence and leap down into the arena to help. Is it cheating to help? Does that really matter in a battle of life and death?

You’re so focused on the fight, you don’t even hear the steady tread of boots stalking up behind you.

How could you hear when Gnashor’s skull splits open to roar and the whole amphitheatre rumbles in response?

It’s why your heart almost leaps out of your throat when a giant, clammy hand fists itself into your hair and wrenches you viciously backwards, ripping your hands off the fence.

You can’t even catch a breath to cry out. Your head snaps back violently, scalp burning like it’s been set on fire as you’re flung to the ground, landing with a sickening thud on your spine and biting your tongue so hard, the taste of iron is quick to spread across its spongey surface.

There’s a ‘smack!’ when your skull follows your body’s momentum and hits the stone underneath it.

At last, you let out a wheezing cry, mouth hanging open in shock as pain and light explode behind your eye sockets. “Wha-!” Voice slurring, you give a dumb blink, your brain sluggish and hazy.

Keeping your eyelids apart is a feat, but you try to focus on what just happened, how you went from standing to laying on your back within a matter of seconds. Colourful sparks dance in front of your retinas, and your ears ring with a high-pitched whine.

‘What the Hell happened!?’

Suddenly, a shadow falls over your eyes, blotting out the sunlight overhead.

Heaving a miserable groan, you lift an arm up weakly to shield your vision and squint up at a towering shape that looms over you, a pair of horns sweeping out on either side of their head.

“Vuh-Ugh… Vulgrim?” you croak blearily.

Your brain feels three times as heavy, thick with fog and confusion, but there are alarm bells blaring somewhere far away as the figure bends down and fills your vision with the sight of a huge, rotting hand, crooked fingers splayed menacingly above you… Reaching for you…

At the back of your mind, a tiny voice whispers through the tinnitus, ‘That’s not Vulgrim.’

Kicking feebly at the ground with your heels, you try to scoot backwards, but you don’t manage to budge more than an inch or two before those same, putrid fingers slither around your neck.

And then, they go taut.

At once, your eyes bulge out of your head, rolling with fright as you’re dragged unceremoniously off the ground by your throat, gasping for breath around an obstructed windpipe.

Flailing your legs, you attempt to strike out with a foot, though your boot only glances off sturdy, unyielding armour. With your vision reclaiming ground, you peer down at the rusty, iron gauntlet below your nose, attached to the arm of the hand that’s strangling you.

Shivering, you tear your eyes off the gauntlet and lift them up to find a vaguely familiar face glaring back down at you.

“B-B-!” you choke out, silenced when the hand gives a squeeze.

A lipless mouth peels apart to reveal crooked, serrated teeth, sneering at you with all the hate of a man watching a bug squirm in his palm.

One of Draven’s recruits holds you aloft, the undead who wielded an axe and had seemed only too eager to separate your head from your body when you first arrived.

“You…” Brumox oozes venom when he spits out the word. “You filthy, little primate!”

His fingers are cold against your neck, but not cold like Death’s crisp, gentle touch. Theirs is the cold of a blade at your throat, or ice pricking your delicate skin, so cold it might burn.

Trembling, and aware that you’re in real danger of suffocating if the abject hatred in his glare is anything to go by, you suck a tight, unpleasant wheeze in through your teeth and kick your brain into gear.

Floppily, you reach a hand down to the sword at your hip, fingers smacking painfully against its pommel as you try to tug it from the leather scabbard.

A curl of fear, more potent than usual, swoops your stomach out from underneath you when Brumox’s eyelights flick down towards your hand. You suppose it would be too much to hope that he didn’t notice.

A cruel sneer creeps across his skeletal face, cheeks worn through to show you the sinew beneath flaps of skin. “You have some nerve,” he hisses, spewing a jet of stale, rancid air into your face.

Just as you grasp the hilt of Karn’s sword, a far larger, far stronger hand clamps down around your wrist and tears it away, gripping so hard, you could swear you feel your bones grind against each other beneath your skin.

“A-arghh!” you manage to exclaim, screwing your face up in agony as Brumox tosses your arm aside and grabs the leather strap of the scabbard, giving a vicious tug and continuing to pull sharply until the strap starts cutting into your side. Then, with a final tug, the leather gives out and splits apart at a worn seam, and the undead tosses the whole thing aside.

Through bleary eyes, you watch it clatter to the ground several yards away, stretching a hand out after it and choking, “K-Kaar-“

You’re cut off by a terrible snarl, and the arm keeping you aloft gives a rough, harried shake, jostling you wildly. “You come into our realm,” Brumox spits, “You flaunt yourself in front of us, with your beating heart and your warm blood…!”

What the Hell is he talking about?

You try to voice your thought, but the air in your lungs is growing staler by the second, and your head is becoming too light to think straight.

Dimly, you’re aware of the sounds of Death and Gnashor battling it out in the arena below you. Can the Horseman even see you from down there? If you could just get enough air in to shout…

“The arrogance-!” he continues, “-of humans. You are not worthy of the souls you host!”

“Brmx!” you sputter through pursed lips, spittle dribbling from the corner of your mouth.

He’d come out of nowhere. Sure, Death said the undead don’t like the living but surely he doesn’t mean to-!

Dark spots circle the outskirts of your vision like insects crawling across your retinas, fast and fleeting.

Brumox, his sockets deep and cold, illuminated by the colour of envy, flexes what muscles haven’t withered away in his bulbous arm and hoists you higher into the air, swinging you clear above the metal barrier and letting you dangle by your neck above the ten-foot drop below.

“You want an audience with the King of the Dead?” he posits in a deep, throaty growl, the translucent glow of his skin going fuzzy at the edges as you try to keep your eyes fixed on his. Is it possible for lungs to catch on fire?

His bones creak when he leans towards you over the fence, his skeletal grin bordering on maniacal as his arm draws you back in, close enough that when he speaks, you can look right between his teeth and see the gaping hole at the back of his throat that lets daylight seep into the dry, hollow mouth from behind him. “Then die.”

And-

“Y/N!”

Death’s call sounds far away in your ringing ears, too far.

The deadly pressure around your neck vanishes with a rip and tear of nails through your skin, and you’re tossed, as dismissively as a piece of lint, down into the pit below.

For one, terrifying and confusing moment, you’re suspended in freefall, wide eyes staring blankly up at the face that sneers down at you over the railings.

You’re granted no more than a second to really comprehend what happened, but by the time that second turns into two, the arena has already risen up to meet you.

‘WHUMPH!’

A shuddersome howl of pain is punched right out of your screaming lungs when you land boots-first in the pit, and the only blessing that flits distantly through the back of your mind is, ‘at least the ash is deep.’

You might have considered it luck, if you didn’t feel so damnably unlucky after being dropped in the first place. Somehow though, you’re immediately swallowed up to your ankles by the soft, giving surface, cushioning an impact which might have otherwise snapped a femur. It still hurts though.

Badly.

You topple backwards, landing with a horrific jolt on your spine for the second time in as many minutes. Any breath you might have sucked back in when Brummox released you is expelled all over again in a pitiful, wretched gasp that empties your chest until it feels hollow and concave.

“Fu-uck!” you groan brokenly, too afraid to move lest you discover that it isn’t just your voice that’s shattered.

Above you, the sky is bright, entirely too bright, causing you to screw your eyes shut with a miserable whine, blocking out the ghostly, green blob hovering on the other side of the metal barrier.

If Brumox still had working salivary glands, he’d send a globule of spit down after you. The nerve of you. As if his perpetual existence spent in servitude isn’t punishment enough, he had to just stand there and stay his blade whilst a living, breathing human sauntered into their midst, rubbing that valuable lifeforce in all of their faces as if to say, ‘Look here. See what you can never have back.’

Curling the rotten side of his mouth into his best approximation of a smirk, the undead allows himself to bask in another moment of your suffering, only too pleased to see you laying stiffly on your back, afraid and bewildered, surrounded by the ashes of all those who came here before you.

With any luck, yours will join theirs soon enough.

Gasping like a fish on land, you blink up at Brumox’s hazy silhouette, watching him turn about as if in slow motion and stalk off, vanishing from the stands.

“No!”

….

…. Oh right, Death!

Piece by piece, your head stops spinning and stitches its scattered fragments back together. The ringing in your ears fades out until you can hear metal clanging and a beast roaring somewhere nearby, and that’s without even mentioning the tremors passing below you like you’ve come to rest right at the epicentre of a veritable earthquake.

Throat burning, aching as if it’s been squashed in a clamp, you muscle down a painful breath and grit your teeth, flexing your fingers and finding, to your immense relief, that you can still feel and move them.

The same goes for your toes. You could almost weep at the pain engulfing your ankles. It means your spine must still be intact.

Screwing your face up in apprehension, you arduously roll yourself over onto your side, blurting out a little cry of shock as the movement sends a jolt running from the base of your skull to the back of your calves. But at least you can move.

Craning your neck back, you blink away tears, clearing your vision enough to make out the blurry shapes in the arena with you.

One of those shapes, smaller and harder to make out, has broken away from the larger, who currently appears to be busy picking itself from the rubble of another, toppled pillar.

One more blink, and at long last, your vision returns to some semblance of normalcy.

You almost wish it hadn’t.

The hazy but discernible blob snaps into focus with a roil of your guts, and suddenly Death is charging towards you, his ebony hair whipping off his mask, eyes wide and explosive like two stars teetering on the brink of a supernova.

Jesus… He isn’t even limping despite the leg half-crushed inside his boot.

In the next instant, the heat of the desert is swiftly and aggressively blasted away by a shockwave of cold, icy air. It suffocates you like a blanket of snow, shocking the breath out of your lungs as if you’ve just dunked yourself in a mountain lake.

Death’s glare might be afire, but his magic has rarely felt colder.

However, that supernatural power, that raw, unparallelled sharpness permeating the air around you pales in comparison to the ice that seeps through your veins when you look beyond Death, to the gigantic mass of bone raising itself from the ash and giving its skull a shake before it twists itself around to glare after the Horseman, locking him in those wicked, green eye-lights.

A horrifying realisation strikes you then, stark and jarring as a slap to the face.

Death has taken his eyes off Gnashor…

He’s shifted priorities.

He… he can’t do that here! Even if it’s only for one, tiny moment, even if he realigns his focus in three seconds flat, you know it’ll already be too late.

This beast, this… Champion must hold its title for a reason.

Death might have gotten away with some lapses in concentration when he was fighting a construct or an over-sized bug, but the bones and skeletal remains piled up around the Gilded Arena are testament to how dangerous this creature is. How it isn’t to be underestimated.

As you feared, Gnashor seizes upon the distraction with a ferocious tenacity.

And it all happens in the blink of an eye.

The Champion’s streamlined body ploughs through the ash like a runaway drill, that shining, golden skull held low as it careens past Death until its tail runs parallel to the Horseman’s loping strides.

Your eyes are fixed on Gnashor, on the undulating motion that starts at its head and winds down the length of its bones as the beast prepares to swerve across Death’s path, one segment after the other snapping sideways.

You can see precisely where the momentum is going to culminate.

But Death?

The stupid bastard’s gaze is locked on you.

It burns your throat to snap up even the tiniest breath, but you hastily draw one in, just enough to open your mouth wide and shout one word.

“TAIL!”

As if coming out of a trance, Death blinks, his tunnel vision expanding outwards from the centre point. From you.

He hadn’t seen what lead up to your fall, not really. If he had, he might have reached you in time. All he’d seen when he picked himself off the ground and caught movement from the corner of his eye, was your small, vulnerable body dangling from the arm of that undead who’d almost gotten a bullet through his foot when he raised his axe against you yesterday.

No sooner has Death placed Brumox’s decaying face than the hand around your throat sprang open.

After that, he didn’t see much more than a red mist of rage that descended over his vision. Even now, he can feel the Reaper bucking against its restraints, but he’s been relying on it too heavily of late. The excessive toll it takes on his magics every time it bursts from him has left his natural reserves dwindling dangerously close to empty. It needs power to break loose. Power he hasn’t re-accumulated. It’s why Death is always so keen to take back control after an outburst. The longer the Reaper is free, feeding off Death’s mystical forces, the longer it takes to rebuild those reserves. And it had been out for quite some time yesterday.

When the Council granted he and his siblings the power to defeat the Nephilim species, they made sure to shackle the Four. Death wasn’t ignorant to their ploy. A failsafe, he supposed, was only understandable. Why build a weapon that doesn’t have an ‘off’ switch? But he’s never cursed them more for their caution than he does now. Limitless access to the primal Reaper would certainly come in handy here.

The Horseman’s legs are pumping before he can register having told them to do so, your name tumbling from his lips of its own accord. Not even the dull throbbing in his calf nor the tiny splinters of wood digging into his scalp could slow him down.

How is it that even when you’re doing the right thing and staying out of harm’s way, you still manage to wind up in danger?

Your shout of ‘Tail!’ tears him from his thoughts and thrusts him back to the present with a vengeance.

It’s just a shame the warning came too late.

Death barely has the wherewithal to glance sideways and spot the enormous, bony tail whipping towards him.

Without slowing his stride, his gives a pre-emptive wince and utters a quick, quiet, “Ah-.”

‘W H A M!’

Death has taken blows before. From makers, and constructs, demons, angels and Nephilim, and even his own siblings.

Over the eons, he’s trained himself to become very good at avoiding even a glancing strike. Which is why he’s always surprised when one does land.

Well. Not only does Gnashor’s wallop land, but it also launches Death completely off his feet.

Barely a few dozen yards away, laying on your belly now, you’re helpless except to let out a pathetic cry as the Champion’s impermeable tail lashes out and slams into your Horseman’s ribs.

Time seems to crawl on its hands and knees as you watch his eyes burst open wide, shocked. For just a heartbeat, Death’s gaze remains locked on your horrified expression, soaking up the fear and anguish and pain pouring off your face. Then, in the next breath, his whole body is suddenly sent flying sideways through the air, careening into one of the stone walls of the arena with a stomach-turning ‘slam!’ that has you flinching your head back instinctively and trying to scream, “Death!” though his name catches in your throat and comes out broken and weak.

Tipping its head back, Gnashor lets out a triumphant bellow whilst Death can only muster a faint groan, sliding down the wall until his knees hit the ash and he collapses onto his palms, shoulders heaving. His mask is tilted down, the dark curtain of hair obscuring his eyes from view, and it’s then that you realise with an awful stab of dread that the Horseman – your powerful, terrifying, nigh-invulnerable friend – might actually be very, very hurt.

Your jaws snap together with an audible ‘click.’

Lowering its massive skull, Gnashor begins slithering towards the slumped Nephilim.

There’s an ache in your body that’s gradually starting to fade, growing even more ignorable as you grit your teeth until they’re bared, curl your hands into quivering fists and push yourself off your stomach, gathering your knees underneath you to sit up. A deep, whistling breath threatens to turn into a cough before it reaches your lungs, but you force it down anyway, hardly caring when the threat to Death is so much greater than your bruised throat.

Zeroing in on the Champion, you open your mouth, heedless of the consequences, forgetting what you are and all of your sense as you bark out a sharp, sudden, “HEY!”

For just one moment, everything in the arena goes eerily silent. Gnashor stills its approach, the segments of its body jerking to a stop in the ash.

Then, sharp as a whipcrack, its skull tears away from the Horseman, and those terrible sockets lock onto you instead.

It’s funny how quickly you can be made to regret a decision. Only, it isn’t really that funny at all when several tonnes of bone wheels itself towards you and makes an unexpectedly mad dash in your direction, responding to your challenge like a bull charging a matador.

It happens to fast and so suddenly, all of your bravado vanishes in a snap and you shriek, toppling over onto your rear and scrabbling backwards at a pitiful pace.

Gnashor cuts a path towards you, throwing bones and ash up like tidal waves to its left and right as its tail whips from side to side.

Your boots kick uselessly at ash, only succeeding in digging grooves into the arena floor as the beast bears down on top of you, careening to a violent stop just inches before it can crush you beneath the weight of a skull that’s as large than you are tall.

Golden bone shimmers in the sunlight as Gnashor rears itself up into a striking position, the metal clamp around its neck creaking with the movement.

Yelping, you tumble onto your back, throwing both arms up and holding your palms out towards the hissing monster, as if you could hold a creature so gargantuan at bay even for a sniff of a second.

The massive jaw that could engulf your entire body hangs open, but all at once, the bone-chilling hiss emanating from somewhere deep inside that cavernous hole cuts out, falling immediately and alarmingly silent.

Eyes screwed shut, your ears continue to ring noisily even in the ensuing quiet.

… Seconds fall away from you like dead things, lost to the desert wind, and when the awful anticipation of waiting for a blow becomes too much to bear, you crack an eyelid open, peeking reluctantly through your shaking fingers to focus on the enormous skull looming over you.

Gnashor cuts a gruesome silhouette against the sky above you. The green of its eyes is wild and vivid, yet as you continue to peep up at them, waiting for the strike to bring it crashing down on top of your head, you can’t help but notice that little by little, the lights inside its sockets are starting to dim.

It’s crooked jaw - filled with formidable, golden fangs as long as your forearm - inches shut as it drags its haunting gaze from your face down to your waist, then slowly slides a glance first to your left hip, then over to your right.

Chest bursting with anticipation, you swallow heavily and feel it catch on the heart lodged at the top of your sternum.

What the Hell is it doing?

You visibly jump in your place on the ground as Gnashor swings its skull from side to side, sweeping its searching gaze over the ash surrounding you, as if it’s looking for something…

With every poignant second that races past like your thundering heart, you’re brought closer and closer to an untimely and painful demise. Gnashor won’t poise like this forever, you remind yourself.

Is this really how it’s all going to come to an end? Crushed by the jaws of a skeletal serpent in some dusty arena far from your home on Earth? And all because you just had to buy Death some time by getting the attention of an adversary you never had a hope in Hell’s chance of escaping or besting…

… Each day is starting to feel more and more like you’re dancing on the edge of a broken record, barely skipping over the same perils and landing right back at where you started, stuck waiting until the next danger swings around to meet you.

A tear rolls off your cheek and buries itself in the ash beside you, lending moisture to a land that barely remembers the cooling flow of water.

Your eyes sparkle with the gathering liquid, and the tracks running down your cheeks glisten like jewels in the sunlight.

Yet still, still Gnashor doesn’t make a move. Its skull hangs above you, its fangs sealed together in a sharp, jagged line as its eye-lights roam from the ground near your hips to your face.

… Your hips though… Why in the world would it be-?

Narrowing your eyes, you risk throwing a rapid glance down at your side before returning your attention to Gnashor’s skull, only partially relieved to find that it hasn’t moved during your lapse in focus.

But that one glance reminds you of something… Something important. Something that only leaves you feeling more vulnerable than you were before, if that were even possible.

Karn’s sword.

It’s gone. It’s still up on the stands, where Brumox had tossed it so carelessly, rendering you unarmed and unable to fight back even if you wanted to…

… If you wanted to?

Fight?

Suddenly, something Ostegoth had said tickles at the back of your mind. What was it…? You give up chasing the train of thought when you realise you don’t really have the luxury of time here.

Wetting your lips with a dry tongue, you keep your eyes affixed to the Champion’s bear-trap jaws and hesitantly croak out, “Gnashor?”

You don’t rightly know what possessed you to speak its name.

At the sound of your voice, the creature’s eye-lights flare like bursting bulbs, and every segment that makes up its vertebrae suddenly tenses, cracking together audibly from the base of its skull all the way to the tip of its tail.

In response, you recoil, curling in on yourself with a gasp that irritates your sore neck.

And just as you’re starting to think you’ve gone and signed your own death warrant, Gnashor’s body abruptly jerks backwards.

The sound you make shouldn’t register in a normal human’s vocal range, but then again, you’re no linguist.

Even Gnashor utters a startled grunt as it whips its skull around at an angle that should have snapped its neck, jaw falling open to unleash an ear-splitting bellow.

Clutching handfuls of ash between your fingers, you drop your eyes to movement behind the beast and promptly let your own jaw go slack.

Death has appeared out of nowhere, apparently having recovered from his brush with the arena wall, shrugging off damage that would have utterly eviscerated a human being. His hands are clamped around the end of Gnashor’s tail, his fingertips curled into claws and buried deep between two segmented bones, anchoring him to the Champion like a briar with murderous intent.

And oh, there is murder, swirling in those wild, amber eyes.

You forget… How soon you forget that Death is a force of nature, arguably more than he is a person.

Even with a mask of bone covering his features, you know there’s a snarl on his face. You can tell in the rumbling growl that’s being forced through his clenched teeth.

All of a sudden, his muscles bulge and ripple beneath corpse-grey skin as he violently heaves his arms backwards, boots digging holes into the ash around his legs when the weight of Gnashor’s body contends with the Horseman’s strength.

You should have grown used to the laws of physics being broken by now. Floating fortresses, flying serpents and the living dead ought to have conditioned you to accept things that should be impossible.

And yet, you can’t keep yourself from gasping aloud as Death lets out a furious shout and swings an equally astonished Gnashor up into the air by its tail, spins on his heels… and slams its skeletal body into the ground behind him.

The tail hits first. Followed quickly by the rest of its body one segment at a time, until finally, with a deafening ‘clang!’ the Champion’s jaw makes landfall, and a sizeable tremor ripples through the arena, shaking the ground beneath your feet.

Dazed, Gnashor simply lays there, stunned into a stupor, pushing a moan of musty air out through the gaps in its fangs whilst Death straightens up and yanks his hands off its tail, curling them into crushing fists that cause his forearms to bunch up until their wrappings strain visibly over protruding muscles.

It would have been nice to get a moment to process what just happened. But alas, the shockwaves have barely stopped rolling by underneath you before the Horseman is rounding on you with a frenzied mania that sends you flinching back onto your elbows in alarm.

He wouldn’t hurt you… you know he wouldn’t… But in that one, split second - with the wind whipping his pitch-black hair about his mask, and the infernos raging behind those carved, bottomless sockets – something small and primitive at the back of your mind wonders if it’s only Gnashor you need to be afraid of…

He must have noticed something, the hitch of your chest or the pupils shrinking to pinpricks in your eyes, but whatever he sees when his feral glare lands on your face, he seems to pause. The oppressive cold billows off the Horseman in sheets. It seeps into your skin and pushes your hairs up from their follicles, obliterating any trace of heat until you forget you’re in a desert at all.

Clouds of crisp, white air start to billow through your teeth with each uneven heave of your chest.

Reluctant to meet his gaze, you lower your eyes to the ground in front of you.

“I’m sorry,” you choke out through a sob, “I’m sorry, I-I didn’t mean to-“

“Shut. Up,” Death grinds out, his voice pitched hazardously low.

He’s livid. No surprise there. But as your wobbling lips press together into a tight, bunched line, you listen to the Horseman move closer, dropping to his knee at your side and muttering vehemently under his breath, “The only one who should be sorry is Brumox…. When I get my hands on that coward…”

So, he did see what happened… at least enough to know you didn’t get yourself into this mess. Sniffling, you allow your gaze to venture around the Nephilim until your bleary vision lands on the long, expansive body laying stretched out behind him.

“It… it didn’t attack me,” you whisper aloud, “Death? Why didn’t it attack me?”

Distracted, the Horseman keeps his hands hovering mere inches above you as he moves them up and down your body, like he’s trying to feel out a source of injury. After a second, he belatedly grunts, “You’re not exactly a threat…” Then- “Damn this place! I thought you’d be-! … I should have left you with Draven…”

You might have taken in what Death is saying, but at that moment, something near the base of the crumbled pillar opposite Gnashor’s body starts to stir.

The Horseman’s words fade to background chatter as you squint your eyes halfway shut, scrunching up one side of your face to utter, “Um… Death?”

A calloused palm suddenly slips underneath your back.

You have to bite down hard on your tongue to resist the urge to lunge away from the sensation of ice on your spine, battling against instinct as you allow Death to manoeuvre you upright gingerly with one hand, the other hovering above your chest.

“You can’t be down here,” he manages to bite out through the ire broiling under his ribcage.

It’s probably a good thing you’re too distracted to make a comment about understatements and the like.

Movement beneath and atop the ash strewn all over the pit has caught your eye. Strange, oblong shapes bulge up from underground in certain places like so many crustaceans clawing their way to the surface of a sandy beach. Those shapes that weren’t buried have been bleached white under the sun, discolouring hardened tissue and causing them to stand out starkly against the grey ash…

‘Bones…’ is all your gobsmacked mind can supply, ‘That’s a lot of bones.’

As Death continues to gently lever you off the ground, your eyes stay firmly affixed to the skeletal remains that have begun to roll and bounce across the arena unhindered. Hundreds of bones are on the move, coming in all shapes and sizes.

All of them are congregating towards a central point.

Gnashor.

Femurs, ribcages, sternums and scapulas… There are some so small you can only see their vague whiteness wriggling like bugs over the ash, and some are so large, they look as though they were stripped right out of an elephant’s carcass.

Blinking dumbly, you find yourself gaping open-mouthed at one of the skulls that had been attached to a skeleton hanging off the pillar Gnashor destroyed. It… almost looks comical now, bounding along the ground, tugged by some dark, invisible call, guiding it towards the Champion.

“… Deeeaath…?” you draw out urgently, lifting your hand to point at the gargantuan fossil stirring back to life, its skull rising slowly from the ground and sending great swathes of ash cascading out of its jaw.

The first of the marching bones have finally reached it.

All you receive in response is a gruff, nonsensical complaint and a hand curling over the top of yours, gently but insistently coaxing it back down towards your side. “Be. Still,” Death commands, shooting you a glare loaded with stark warning, “I’m getting you out of-!”

Without waiting for him to finish his sentence, you wrench your limb out from under his and heave an exasperated groan. Then, quite thoughtlessly disregarding your own sense of self-preservation, you bend forwards and place your hands firmly on either side of his face, your fingertips pressed to the cool, calloused skin of his jawline and your palms cupped around the cheekbones of his mask.

At your unexpected touch, Death’s body locks up tight, shocked beyond comprehension, but he’s stunned enough that he doesn’t think to resist as you simply twist his head sideways over one of his shoulders until you’re more or less facing him in Gnashor’s direction, letting him go once his eyes lock onto what you’ve been trying to alert him to.

Inwardly, Death notes that you didn’t try to remove his mask. He notes the warm tingle left in the path your fingers traced. Then, he notes the path the bones are making towards his adversary’s body.

“Ah,” he says shortly, still hunched over you like a bristling shroud, “Well. That’s hardly sporting.”

Like a long-buried fossil trapped beneath the dirt, Gnashor raises itself up onto its stomach, tilts its skull back and unleashes one of its earth-shaking roars. As if on command, the bones that had been moving steadily towards the Champion are swept up in a sudden maelstrom of ash.

A vicious gust of wind whips across the arena as if out of nowhere, hauling the remains violently up into the air, and right before your eyes, the bones shoot towards Gnashor’s serpentine body.

Sinuous strips of leathery skin still clinging to some of the osseus matter latch onto the Champion, pulling the bones into place like a grotesque puzzle, stitching a hulking body together out of dozens of corpses.

In one blink, a bulging ribcage has surrounded Gnashor’s spine. In another, two arms are formed with crushing fists made up of thicker bones sprouting at the end of each wrist. Shoulders protrude outwards around its skull, jagged and enormous. Then clavicles and a sternum, a pelvis… It all fuses together, a body built over the top of what used to be Gnashor.

The gruesome marriage of corpses finally ends when the Champion slams its newly-formed hands into the ground and pushes itself upright, and you watch horror-stricken as a pair of limbs are cobbled together underneath its bulk.

Clawed feet find purchase on the ground as Gnashor, now almost thrice its original size, stands on two colossal legs, the end of its prehensile tail jutting out from behind the bones and extending down to the ground below, lashing from side to side through the ash.

At last, it turns, heaving its bulky, crooked body around to face you and Death.

Its golden skull sits between two, mountainous shoulders, still attached to the spinal columns below it.

And then you realise… Gnashor is the spine, wearing this new, skeletal body like a suit of armour.

You’ve seen magic before. Death’s, Eideard’s, even the Warden’s when he constructed a bridge out of broken stone using nothing but his voice.

You haven’t seen this type of magic before though.

A body built from others, stolen from the ground.

On a blood-deep level, you know in your very cells that this is wrong.

A body should rest.

Is this what will happen to you and Death if Gnashor is victorious? Will you become part of this Champion, helping it defend its title, however unwittingly. Will your bones remember you?

The idea opens up a blackhole at the base of your throat, and all the air you try to draw in seems to go into the pit instead of your lungs.

All of a sudden, your view of Gnashor is partially blocked by long, agile legs.

Tearing your gaze off the brute, you find Death swelling to his full height between you, his scythes already in hand.

Gnashor lifts it foot off the ground, aiming to take a step forwards, but this time, the Horseman doesn’t intend to let it make the first move.

Silently, but explosively, Death lunges into a break-neck sprint, wrenching his arm forwards as he moves and hurling his scythe into a boomerang throw. Metal spins in a whirlwind, curving around Gnashor and clanging against its shoulders on both the toss and the return, sending the monster reeling away from you.

The weapon flies straight back into Death’s raised palm with a resounding ‘smack,’ but he doesn’t let the momentum waver, driving forwards with another swing aimed at the Champion’s leg.

Stomping its foot back down, Gnashor sends tremors through the ground with its weight alone. Verdant, flaring eye-lights flit down to the scythe that has just nicked a chip out of its leg, then up to the Horseman, and the other scythe clutched in his vice-like grip.

Something strange happens then, so briefly that you can’t be sure you caught it at all.

Perhaps it’s just your mind playing tricks on you – it’s hard to know where Gnashor is looking – but you think you see its skull tilt ever so slightly to one side as if it’s peering around Death, and then the eerie sensation of being watched creeps up the back of your neck.

The moment is over before the hairs have even fully risen on your nape.

In front of you, Death draws a scythe back, ready to strike out with it once more.

It’s as though he’s just waved a red flag.

Gnashor’s eyes are upon him in the next second, shrinking to small, green pinpricks in their sockets. Opening its jaw wide, it bellows down at him, pawing one, massive foot at the ash like a bull on the cusp of charging.

So, Death charges first.

Launching himself off his backfoot, the Horseman slips fox-like around Gnashor’s arm as it whips out in front of him, intending to smack him right out of his boots.

Thus, their dance begins anew.

Death drives, bullies and strafes Gnashor across the arena, and it doesn’t escape your notice that he’s deliberately leading the giant away from where you sit, gawping like a dead-eyed fish as their brutal waltz ploughs on.

What the Champion lacks in weaponry, it makes up for in the force and power behind its brawny fists, swinging them at Death with wild and reckless abandon, faster than the Horseman had anticipated. He continues trying to chip away at it, working out the weak spots, darting in rapidly to try and get his scythe around its neck only to be forced away again when it reels back and attempts to grab him with its savage fists.

The two of them seem so evenly matched. Death is giving Gnashor a run for its money, but the Champion doesn’t seem so willing to give up its title either. You suppose that’s fair, given the implications. Having to lose one’s head seems like a decent incentive to fight your corner, after all.

It takes another minute of letting the thunderous roars and clashing of steel rumble through your chest like cannon-fire before you come back into yourself with a start.

“The Hell am I doing?” you shakily whisper to yourself, twisting your sore neck around to look frantically at the high walls surrounding the pit.

You need to get out of here. Just because Death can’t help you right now doesn’t mean you can’t. If you can get to a higher vantage point again, maybe you can be his eyes.

Oh, where’s Dust when you need him?

It hurts to push yourself onto your feet, though thankfully far less so than you feared it would. Hesitant, you place a testing boot down, feeling it twinge as it bears your weight, but not nearly enough to whine about.

Setting your jaw, you amble around to face away from the fight raging behind you and start to drag yourself arduously across the arena, aiming for the closest wall and passing beneath the shadow of one of the last, standing pillars.

Behind you, Death’s attacks continue, relentless.

Even with its newfound mobility, Gnashor is exceptionally quick on its feet. But Death’s own agility has never been something to sniff at.

Through skills honed over countless millennia, he’s always boasted the best reflexes of his siblings, seconded only by Strife’s quick tongue and quicker trigger-finger.

The Champion has its back to you now, just as Death intended. Out of sight, hopefully out of mind until you get yourself out of danger. He’s starting to think he must have missed the sign taped to your back that reads ‘Sitting duck.’

In any event, he’s growing bored of this whole challenge.

The Dead King had better be worth all the hassle…

Folding himself over backwards to duck beneath one of Gnashor’s swinging fists, Death lets the air rush by overhead, then lurches upright again, and uses the sudden proximity to aim a particularly aggressive swipe at the underside of his adversary’s neck, where metal has been fused with bone.

In a flurry of sparks, Harvester scrapes a sharp gouge across the bear-trap around Gnashor’s throat.

The startling savagery of Death’s blow forces the Champion to falter and lean into a clumsy retreat to take itself out of range.

Snapping its teeth down at the Horseman to ward him off, it stumbles away from his malicious scythes, backing up too quickly in a frantic bid to regain ground. It doesn’t look behind itself. Shouldn’t need to when its only threat is advancing on it from the front. As such, it doesn’t see one of the few remaining pillars that still stands proudly at its back.

The arena is quite suddenly filled with the hollow thunk of bone colliding against wood with the pendulum force of a wrecking ball.

The huge notches on Gnashor’s spine strike the pillar hard, buckling the structure behind it.

Its gaze flits backwards, taking in the obstruction keeping it from retreating any further, and with nowhere else to go, it promptly leans its full weight against the wood and uses it as a springboard to launch itself back towards Death, its eye-lights a blistering inferno of sick, poisonous green.

But just as it wrenches its vertebrae free of the structure’s surface…

‘CRACK!’

Wood splits apart, a tiny yelp of alarm rings out across the amphitheatre, and Gnashor skids to a halt and spins around in a flurry of ash just in time to see the pillar snapping apart at its base.

Bright, luminous eye-lights zip down and lock onto the little figure standing directly underneath the toppling tower…

You know full well that you’re too slow to get yourself out from below it, yet still you try to scramble through the ankle-deep ash as the entire pillar comes falling towards you like a great, groaning tree, the chains trailing behind it with the speed of its descent.

At the very last second, you let out a shrill wail and throw your arms up to cover your head, only too aware that such a meagre defence will do you no good, in the end.

Above the sound of splintering wood and air rushing towards you, you think you hear the drumming of heavy footfalls as they thud over the ground, but you’re too busy wondering if Death will ever forgive you for this to pay attention.

All of a sudden, a spray of ash is kicked up against your arms, whipping at your bare skin, and in the next instant, the jarring yet familiar sensation of a vast, bony hand is enveloping your torso, palm to your backside and skeletal fingers caging you in from the front.

Without being granted time to adjust, you’re hauled sideways through the air and shoved up against a broad, impervious chest, smothering the yelp that jumps off your lips.

And not a moment too soon.

The impact of the pillar making landfall sends a boom through your body so fierce, it threatens to rattle the teeth right out of your gums. The force alone catapults a billowing cloud of ash into the sky, and if it weren’t for the hand cupping you face-first to a solid surface of bone, you’d no doubt catch a mouthful of corpse dust.

Even with the impromptu barrier, you still cough and splutter as grit coats your tongue after taking a breath.

“Fu-uck!” you hack, feeling the bones twitch at your spine in response, “Ugh… Death!?”

Only when the clamour around you starts to fall silent are you eased away from the expansive chest and tilted backwards until you’re sprawled out on the palm below you, head tipped towards the sky above.

Blinking through the haze of drifting ash, you squint up at the huge shape looming overhead, eclipsing the late morning sun.

“Death?” you repeat.

A skull… large and dark… You’d so easily recognise the shape of one by now.

The murk starts to settle, and you blink again, giving the Reaper a wobbly smile. “Th-thanks, buddy,” you whisper breathlessly, so sure the figure holding you must be the one you’ve become well acquainted with.

It’d be ludicrous to assume otherwise.

Which is why it comes as such a shock when a gentle breeze whisks away the floating particles of ash and exposes the skull above you.

Gold….

Not the safe, off-white cheekbones and cranium you know, nor the soft eyes that sit like spotlights inside ebony sockets.

These eyes waver, slowly flaring brighter as they take you in, casting you in their encompassing, emerald glow.

Your stomach promptly drops.

Peeling the dry tongue off the roof of your mouth, you draw in a trembling breath, feeling your throat squeeze around the air flowing into it.

Confused, bewildered – afraid – the only word you can think to utter is, “Gnashor?”

The Champion of the Gilded Arena… The beast whose head Death had been tasked to collect has just pulled you out of the path of the falling pillar…

“But… Why? I-… What?”

As you sputter through a string of nonsensical words, a dark silhouette seems to materialise in the air above Gnashor’s shoulder, soaring towards its skull with two, curved streaks of silver arched out on either side like a pair of wings.

Your eyes burst open, and the confusion steps dutifully aside to make way for urgent alarm and desperation.

“DEATH!” you cry, helplessly flinging a hand out as if you could keep his weapons from completing their arc through sheer will alone, “WAIT! STOP-!”

It always seems so unfair how time will slow down or speed up of its own accord. You need more of it. Now more than ever. Just to have a few extra seconds to catch Death’s eye.

But seconds don’t last as long as they used to, you think.

Because it’s all over before you can finish your sentence.

The infuriated Horseman’s flight ends with his boots landing on the juncture where Gnashor’s spine meets its skull. With one hand, he reaches forwards to grasp its cranium, his other arm curled back above his head, hand secured brutally around Harvester’s grip.

Before Gnashor can even register the presence on its spine, Death swings the blade out and down with one almighty heave, carving a silver crescent through the air…

You don’t know which is worse.

Seeing it or hearing it.

The dreadful ‘shwip!’ of razor-sharp metal slicing through bone makes you feel as though your ears are trying to shrink in on themselves.

Gnashor’s whole body jolts, locking up rigidly and hunching in around you, eye-lights receding to tiny dots in its skull.

 The hand you’d stretched out towards Death ventures back to cup over your mouth in muted horror as you meet its dwindling stare.

Below you, the giant quakes, and then it suddenly pitches forwards.

The knuckles on its hand collide with the ground, jostling your aching body painfully against its bony palm.

For just a moment, you continue to peer tearfully into the Champion’s flickering gaze, and then with a final, thrumming groan, its jaw falls slack, and the lights swirling prettily within the sockets of its skull flutter once…

… and die…

All around you, Gnashor’s fingers go limp and start to fall apart. The individual bones that had once formed the appendage as a whole slip out of whatever magic shackles bonded them together and clatter on the ground below, forming a pile of skeletal remains all around you.

A second later, the Champion’s severed skull falls off its spine, revealing a neat, perfect slice where the bones had once been fused.

It crashes solidly to the ash just in front of your legs, dead-eyed and lifeless, glittering gold in the sun, and its body comes tumbling down afterwards like a house of cards, inevitably doomed from the beginning.

As the dust settles, you tremulously raise your head to see the Horseman standing tall and triumphant on what remains of the Champion’s back, his elbows held out widely from his torso, chest thrust forwards as if he’s posturing.

You came into the Gilded arena with the hope that Death would be victorious.

Now though, in the aftermath of battle, you find yourself wishing he wasn’t.

"Death," you croak, brows pinched achingly above your crumbling expression, "What have you done?" 

[lorephobic]

second most devastating passage in all of manhunt

fr maybe the most devastating passage in all of manhunt. what did u talk about david? what did he say to u that convinced u to stay?

[n0tamused]

dottore having to dispose of a faulty clone (maybe bc they were threatening reader) and then handfeeding reader parts of it like cannibalism as a metaphor for love…. do we see the vision or is this a little too 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 💔💔

A/n: pookie you're all good, thank you for feeding my brain worms with this idea I'm sending you smooches. I do hope I executed this well. I had a lot in my head that I wanted to write for this but I didn't want this to turn into a word scramble so here's this. Enjoy <3

Content: Dottore x GN reader, dark content(?), a bit yandere, implied unhealthy relationship, implied cannibalism, cannibalism as a metaphor for love, idk what else to tag as I never posted something like this so if anything else needs tagging feel free to lemme know

Words: 735

Several candles lined the polished oak table, its surface smooth and almost sticky, the light rippling over the dark lines of the carvings on top like little light bugs chasing one another. The golden hues danced over the plates as well, but the dim light scarcely allowed for a good look at the dishes.

The fork extending forward to your lips was the only thing that held your attention long enough to be observed, taken in fully, lips closing around the bit of meat and vegetables. The juice and oil fills your mouth, sinking past your teeth and around your gums, the taste is rich yet stale all at once. You couldn’t comment on it, you didn't know what to say about it. Not with the Doctor sitting at your side and being the one to feed you so, so gently.

It's hard to remember when was the last time he looked so gentle, kind even, perhaps when he was lighting up the candles with such care, as if his own breath would blow the flames into a blaze, allowing you to see your plate in full.

The meat was well done, seasoned to your liking, and something told you it was Dottore’s own hand who prepared it, gave it his all to make it so perfect for consumption. Parts of him were laced through every sensation, every smell and every bite. Your own plate is set before him and he's cutting all your bites, spearing pieces of meat and salad onto the fork before feeding it to you, making sure you ate well.

The dull ache in your arms is brought back into memory as you languidly chew on a bite, and your fingers absentmindedly touch over your sleeves over where the bruises lay, feeling the ache grow.

“Do they still hurt you?” His voice called out amidst smoky smells and brown fog, calling you to the present. “Have you gotten any rest at all, my dear?” He added, his head tilting in your direction, his bird-like mask not allowing you for a glimpse of his ruby eyes, but from underneath you can see glimpses of the scars peeking through, teasing your eyes. For some reason he chose to wear it here, now, only puzzling you further. 

“No.. no.. they're fine… I’ll get some rest later tonight, sir..” you reply as you swallow and watch how he grimaced at the title, and you nearly cough from how big this bite was, but you would have taken a bigger bite had Dottore allowed you to feast yourself. Perhaps not, but you told yourself you would. Be it the rich taste or some other factor, you yearned to take up each bone from the meat and lick it clean, sucking out the marrow from within and letting it melt into your guts.

Would he be satisfied then?

Would you be?

The candles flicker. He's still looking at you

“Are you still afraid? I've already told you so, and explained it many times. You have nothing to fear here. This was just an error in the system which will not ever happen again.. and you shouldn't have been around to witness it, anyhow..”. You have to wonder how he can say all this with so little fear. Then again, the clone was his creation. He knew it inside and out, every crevice and every wire.

“I understand.. it's just that.. I'd rather not face the others now..not after that..” 

Truth be told, having him around was also slightly unnerving, as he wore nearly an identical face as the one that harmed you. They were the same, but also not. He was gentle, but he was not.

The one that hurt you was long disposed of and would never harm you again, but Dottore was once the one that hurt you, and now he has poured himself out before you, all for your pleasure and the sweet poison of safety and love.

He hopes to convey it to you through each meticulously put bite, every sip he graces your lips with. He had cut himself open for you and would do so again, just as he hurt you through that error. It came as easy as drinking and breathing. 

“That’s understandable. I assure you are safe, and however dark the night may get - I'll be there with you… But for now, you must eat, not fear. Open wide..”

Ⓒ n0tamused. Do not repost, translate, edit, and/or copy any of my works. Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated.

[banquetwriter]

hey !! I’d like to request a Johnnie x reader that has to do with you guys getting into some kind of fight and it’s just super bad so you leave and you guys go without talking and eventually Johnnie comes and apologizes to you and you guys talk it out

୨୧ Puffy eyes ୨୧

pairing: Johnnie Guilbert ♡︎ Reader

warnings: ୭̥⋆*｡ screaming, arguing, lots of crying, Johnnie being desperate lol, not edited

summary: ʚ Johnnie and you fight and the makeup that happens after • fluff/angst ɞ

Words: 2891

An: Tara is my #1 and NO ONE can change that, the I'm doing my requests out of order bc i had more inspo for this one lol

SUPPORT ME

You hadn't had ANYTHING to eat today. You were helping a friend out by watching her kid so obviously you couldn't leave the kid unattended. After a few exhausting hours, you had to help your different friend go shopping at a formal event they had coming up.

It was safe to say your brain was fried and scrambled. You set your bag down on the counter and fill up a glass of water. You took a second to let yourself sit in your misery before placing the empty cup in the sink and making your way to your shared room with Johnnie.

You slowly creaked open the door, he was sitting on his phone in his editing chair. You didn't even say anything, just sat your bag down and flopped onto the bed. But to your surprise, Johnnie doesn't say a thing, he just continues to type away on his phone.

Realistically it wasn't a big deal, sure it was annoying but texting people made him nervous so he was a slow texter. You rolled over onto your back looking up at the ceiling, then to your boyfriend.

You stared at him for at least a minute before you were fed up. “Johnnie?” you asked in a small voice. He silently looked up at you, not even putting his phone away. “What?” he asks after a beat of silence. You try to speak by opening your mouth but nothing comes out.

You get tears well up in your eyes, how embarrassing, you eventually managed to stutter out your thoughts. “N-nothing i-i just wanted to m-make sure you were ok.”

“Yeah. I'm fine,” he said looking back down at His phone. You wanted to cry, your annoying day wasn't getting any better. “OK, good. Let me know if you aren't,” you said, but your words seemed to fall on deaf ears. He didn't react, just continuing to text.

You inhaled sharply trying to prevent the tears threatening to spill from leaving your eyes. “What's wrong with you?” he asks in a bored tone.

The phrase takes you by surprise. He didn't ask what was wrong or if you were ok he asked what was wrong with you. Like it was some sick joke. “What?” you ask, staring at him, your eyes were already droopy, and could barely hold steady.

“You're just all whiny and bitchy right now,” he said, shrugging. You were taken aback. Never in your time dating Johnnie has he EVER said anything like this to you. “I’m-” you started trying to compose yourself from blowing over.

You're interrupted by the sounds of a digital keyboard clacking away. You look back at him to see he is no longer looking at you or paying any sort of attention to you but is instead texting again. Your sadness and pain turned to anger in a second.

“Who are you texting?” you ask in the most level-headed voice you can muster. “What?” he asked looking up again. “I asked ‘Who are you texting?’” you repeated. He stared at You blankly like it was a joke you were pulling on him.

But there was no joke, you were dead serious. “Just work stuff,” he muttered, continuing to type. Jealousy and suspension ran through your body, curious as to why he was acting so angry. He was also hiding who he was talking to.

Was he cheating?

You cursed yourself as soon as you thought about it. No. Johnnie would never. But would he? “No I get that but who?” you asked, sitting up. He eyed you in a funny manner, “Someone I'm trying to collab with.” he said, for once in this whole conversation not looking down at His phone.

“Cool. But who is it?” you ask again your suspicion growing tenfold. “Just this girl I-” You don't let him finish before you cut him off. “Girl?” you ask in a loud voice. His phone turns off automatically from inactivity. “Yeah. Is there a problem with me having female friends?” he asks, turning his chair towards you.

You squint your eyes at him as if to ask ‘Are you serious?’. “No, I have no issue with you having female friends. I am in what I thought was a very secure relationship. What I have issues with is you treating me like a little bitch and then hiding who you're texting, when it's some girl you're gonna “collab” with.” you say adding air quotes around your words.

The tension was thick, laced with the mallace your words held. “Woah. ‘What you thought was?’” he quotes sitting forward in your chair. “Hey, you listened to me for once! Good job!” you replied in a mocking cheery voice.

“So you're just gonna fucking dump me over what I do for work?” he said standing up. Your world felt like it was spinning. ‘Dump him?’ you hadn't mentioned breaking up with him but… if that's the first thing he thought of maybe he wanted that.

“Dump you?” you ask. “When have I said anything about that? I'm just upset with you,” you said, your tiredness gone. “Yeah upset at me for doing work!” he shouts at you. Johnnie hasn't yelled at you this whole time you've been dating.

You can't hold your tears in anymore. His loud demeanor cuts through your already fragile heart like a razor blade. You don't say anything letting your tears fall. Johnnie's face contours with regret at his words. “Y/n I-” he begins but you cut him off.

“I was never upset at you for doing your work. You treated me like shit and ignored me to text another girl, one you won't even tell me the name of.” your voice was calm but filled with anger. You slowly stood up reaching for your bag.

Johnnie followed suit trying to hold you. You smacked his contact away from you, his arms still outstretched as he slowly took a step back from you. Your eyes had turned into faucets, leaking all your sadness out. “Don't call me. Don't text me. If you think I am going to break up with you over a tiny argument, maybe we shouldn't talk at all.” you spat between your tears.

“Y/n no! I didn't mean-” but the rest of his words don't register as you grab your bag and run out of the room without bothering to close the door. He follows you, saying things your brain doesn't let you pick up. You practically ran downstairs where Jake was walking into the house.

He noticed something was clearly wrong and started to say something that you again couldn't hear. You brushed right past him leaving your house and getting into your car. You didn't know what or where you were going; you just drove.

You found yourself heading towards Tara’s house. You didn't know if she was even home or could have people over. You say in your car resting your forehead against your steering wheel. You reluctantly picked up your phone and dialed Tara’s number.

“Heyy girl,” Tara said. You tried to keep your voice level but failed. “Um, Tara? Are you home?” you asked, your voice breaking. You peeked in her driveway not seeing her flashy pink car. “Omg y/n I'm not no are you ok? What happened?” she asked quickly.

“Me and Johnnie got into a fight and he-” your voice broke with a sob. “I'm shopping right now but give me 15 I can be at my house! Where are you right now? Are you still there?” she asked in a panicked voice. “No, I left, I'm at your house,” you said, your voice creaking.

“Ok hang tight I will be right there,” she said before hanging the phone up. You put your phone on Do Not Disturb not having time to deal with anyone's bullshit right now. You stayed in your car just sobbing your eyes out.

It wasn't like you and Johnnie hadn't had arguments before but they weren't like this at all. He hadn't ever yelled. They usually get resolved quickly. But that was all gone now. You two probably weren't even dating anymore.

The idea just made you cry harder, you could see through bleary eyes that Tara had pulled in. She hastily got out of her car and ran to yours. You undid your seatbelt and opened the door. Tara’s arms were on you in an instant.

You continued to cry as she pulled you out of the car and helped you into her house. All you could do was bawl your eyes out on her couch. Tara ran around her house finding you some tissues then a cup of water then some vegan chocolate (better than nothing right) and eventually, she door-dashed you some Taco Bell.

By this point, your blubbering had cooled down and you were able to recount the argument to your loving friend. “He yelled at you? I don't think I've ever heard his voice get loud enough to register a yell.” Tara mumbles while taking a bite of her food.

You wipe your tears away nodding your head in agreement. “I don't even think we are together anymore,” you said, shrugging your shoulders. It's crazy how life can be so perfect then it comes crashing down out of nowhere.

“I don't think that's right y/n,” Tara says looking at you opening a sauce packet. You just shrug in response, how could this happen to you? You two felt so perfect. It was all broken now huh?

After a moment of silence, Taras's phone goes off. “Oh god, it's a call from Johnnie,” she mutters while picking it up. “Hello?” she asks, standing up and waking to the other side of the room.

You could tell she was trying to not let you hear the conversation. Fortunately or unfortunately you did hear. “Johnnie I don't think we should be really-” she stops for a second, you can't hear what he is saying but you know it's something long as for the next several seconds you hear nothing.

“Johnnie Johnnie calm down please,” Tara said, her voice much calmer than it was when she answered the phone. “I'm not going to tell you where they are-” Tara was cut off again. You can't hear him clearly but you can't tell he is hysterical.

She lets out a deep sigh, “Yes Johnnie they are safe I promise I'm looking at them right now.” she mutters, turning around to look at you. She looks at you for a little before you can hear the hysterical sounds again and she rolls her eyes looking back at the backdoor.

“You sniffle slightly looking down at the table before Tara comes pattering back over to you. “You need to talk to that boy soon,” she comments with an exaggerated look on her face.

You take a deep sigh and check your phone. Since you still had DND on you couldn't see any of your motifs, you unlock the phone to see that Johnnie had called you 48 times in a row. With several voicemails.

You turned on the first one to listen, checking the timestamp that was minutes after you left the house. “Hey, y/n please I'm sorry I didn't mean to make a big deal I was just upset earlier.” the voicemail clicked signaling it was the end. The next one was 30 minutes later.

“Hey, y/n please I'm getting really worried about you calling me back as soon as you can.” your heart burned as you heard his worried voice.

The next few voicemails were minutes apart.

“Y/n please I'm sorry where are you? Are you safe? Call me back, I'm sorry.” his voice was breaking and high-pitched.

“Y/n you have to call me back I'm so worried about you. Please I'm so sorry I promise we can work this out just call me.”

“Y/n, please! I never meant to hurt you. I swear that girl didn't even mean shit I didn't even wanna collab with her please.” he was sobbing now.

“Y/n please I'm gonna keep calling you until you answer.”

You checked and he had called you so much apparently he needed to call Tara to make sure you were ok. You felt your heart pinging after him wanted to just hear his voice again.

Just then your phone goes off with a call from Jake. Taras's eyes shoot up trying to see who it was. “It's just Jake,” you mutter before answering the phone. “Hello?” you ask.

There is silence before Jake answers back surprised, “Hey sorry I didn't think you would answer me um, look I know you're totally pissed at Johnnie which you have every right to be but do you think you could call him back? Uhh, I am not exaggerating when I say he is having a full-blown freakout right now.” Jake spoke the last part quietly.

Johnnie presumably was in the room with him so you took a deep breath. “Yeah, I can call him just tell him it will be a few ok? I didn't ignore his calls on purpose I had Do Not Disturb turned on,” you said looking at Tara while you spoke.

“Ok gotcha no worries just soon please he is freaking out right now,” Jake said again. “Bye Jake,” you muttered, hanging up the call. You took the phone from your ear and scrolled around till you found Johnnie’s contact. You took a deep breath before you called him.

He picked up instantly,“Y/n? Oh my god, you don't know how happy I was when you called. Are you ok? I mean I know you aren't ‘ok’ but are you safe?” he rambled for a second.

“Johnnie?” you asked quietly. There was silence on the other side. “Yes?” he croaked out quietly. “One question at a time, please calm down,” you said sadly. “Are you safe?” you took a deep breath. This was the Johnnie you fell in love with. The one who cared about you.

“Yes I'm safe at Taras,” you Said which did not make Tara happy, as she quickly made a cutting motion at her throat. “Ok. Ok good,” he said quietly. There wasn't any noise for a second. Both of you feel like kicked puppies.

“Can we talk in person? Please? I miss you.” he said, his voice filled with sadness. You would love to but you feared what would happen so close after the argument. “Yeah, we can just not today,” you promise him. He stays quiet over the line, you can feel his heart breaking.

“Yeah of course whenever you feel comfortable, ok?” He was trying and failing to sound very positive. You hung up the phone and spent the next few hours trying everything Tara thought would make you feel better. It was a sweet attempt but there wasn't much that could cheer your mood up.

Eventually, you made a makeshift bed on her couch and fell asleep. In the morning you borrowed Taras's bathroom and got ready. You hugged her goodbye and promised her that if you needed anything else you wouldn't hesitate to call.

Full of nerves you made your way to your own house. You stepped out of the car and unlocked your front door. You walked into the usually lively space that was now empty and sad. You gripped your bag tightly and made your way upstairs.

You opened the door to your room, and the sight you saw nearly shattered your heart into two. Johnnie, still wearing his clothes from yesterday, was clutching one of your sweatshirts. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Dark circles sat under his eyes.

He looked up at you as you entered the room. He didn't move, he just stayed on the bed. “Sweetheart-” you began dropping your bag and going to his side. He quickly wrapped his arms around you, nearly suffocating you with the force of holding you.

“I'm so sorry, I was upset because my computer crashed while I was editing and so I lost the footage and- it doesn't matter I'm sorry,” he mumbled into your shirt. Wet hot tears slowly slid down his face and made their way to your clothes.

“Johnnie, did you sleep last night?” you whispered towards him. He just shook his head no. “I forgive you. I promise. It was a stupid fight. I promise you I didn't and don't want to break up ok?” you said finally playing with his hair slightly.

“What did I do to deserve you?” he cried to you pulling away and meeting your eyes. “I don't know but it has to be something pretty good.” you joked. He laughed, wiping a few tears from his eyes. You assisted him with wiping them away by placing small kisses under his eyes.

You silently pulled him into the bathroom, getting him situated on the counter. You stood in between his legs cleaning off his day-old make-up. He sat silently as you tenderly cared for him. Eventually, you got him to drink a glass of water and helped him change into comfy clothes.

You lay down with him, being a big spoon of course. He made a million promises to you before dozing off. Your argument wasn't finished but it could take the back seat.

[dnickels]

I don't think Gibson gets enough credit for how skillfully he extricated himself from the sodomy allegations. Long post to follow ->

The evangelical mindset is "we are constantly under siege from both invisible powers and our fellow man (and even one's own thoughts), every waking moment is nonstop spiritual battle" so Gibson framing himself as too weak to refuse advances (without spiritual backing, naturally) is a brilliant play for Irving's own anxieties while also putting him in the position to be the shepherd rescuing one of his flock. A direct appeal to the Victorian bourgeois savior narrative, expertly played. He's given Irving a script so familiar and one he's so eager to act out he doesn't for a second question its veracity.

And now we depart to the realm of pure speculation (oh boy my favorite) but I always wonder what exactly Gibson told him, and how much it actually corresponds to what we hear Irving scold Hickey for. I wonder if something got lost in translation (Irving heard what he wanted to hear which is not quite the same as what's actually being said). I think Gibson is perfectly capable of shopping Hickey to save his own skin no question, but that scenario doesn't quite jive with how surprised/concerned he is that Hickey and Irving apparently had a chat about the situation. Surely Gibson didn't think he could say "I was coerced" without some kind of follow-up? It could be a feint, he's just acting to try and keep Hickey from holding a grudge (I think Gibson knows with brutal clarity that you do not want to be on Hickey's shitlist) but his reaction reads to me like he's seeing his fib start to spiral out of control. Of course, one of the grand themes in Terror is people not being as smart as they think they are (or, more charitably, that even well-conceived plans often shipwreck on the shoals of human unpredictability) so it could just be an example of a reasonable plan blowing up on contact with an unreasonable person, as individuals are a universe unto themselves and truly unknowable to each other. Or maybe he really didn't think Irving would do anything, because he asked him to keep it quiet? Maybe that's how it usually goes, everyone agrees to keep it quiet-- sobering thought.

Still, it intrigues me to think about Irving as the wildcard in Gibson's plan, not Hickey-- bringing baggage to it that Gibson didn't include in his calculations. I wonder if Gibson heard the lecture, how many of his own words would he recognize? I can see the shape of a communications breakdown, where a tactful "the temptation was overwhelming, I couldn't resist him" becomes "he used overpowering force" or "I didn't come forward because I was afraid" becomes "he threatened me into silence". Not unreasonable assumptions for Irving to make, honestly, I just think its interesting to play with the idea that they are assumptions and not part of Gibson's ass-saving explanation. Just no accounting for what happens in the pressure-cooker of the evangelical brain!

Obviously the darker read here is that Irving can't understand a messy gay situationship despite spending years at sea is because he is homophobic (while desperately refusing/denying/fighting his own desires) or was himself party to coercion, either towards himself or someone else.

I just think its interesting to think of how it might have played out if Gibson and Hickey been surprised by say, Hodgson instead-- who might have given them a stern "I don't want to catch you two not at work again" but otherwise let the matter slide, or Little, who I can see loading them down with donkeywork but refraining from escalating because doing so means talking to Crozier and Oh God, Please No.

I keep coming back to the question of whether or not Gibson was ready/intending to burn Hickey as badly as his lie makes it seem. While I think he's perfectly capable of it, but it seems like such a risky move when his confession (owning what Irving has no real proof of, I'm more familiar with the early 19th century legal situation on land but the standard of proof for sodomy specifically was actually pretty high) could just as easily backfire on him rather than exonerating them both. We only have Gibson's word that he acted for their mutual benefit, and even if he's telling the truth it seems like stepping on a landmine: no one seems to think Hickey would hang on his accusation, so he's going to still be around after a potential flogging and presumably pissed off. Obviously its a bad situation all around but I am so curious about his own risk/reward accounting. For me, I really enjoy imaging him trying to play master manipulator to Jirv who is absolutley not a player and mostly lets Jesus call the shots. Very funny to me to be so ambitious and skillful and willing to play the Great Game but it all comes to nothing due to human folly. Thesis moment.